


All Things Are Difficult Before They Are Easy

by Amaryllis_Namikaze



Category: Naruto
Genre: Age Difference, Crybaby Overdramatic Main Character, Drama, Feminine Male Main Character, Fluff and Angst, For real you've been warned, Like reaaaally slow, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Insert, Slow Burn, drama everywhere, mentions of bullying, or an attempt at it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:29:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 76,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaryllis_Namikaze/pseuds/Amaryllis_Namikaze
Summary: Because being Namikaze Minato’s younger brother is easier said than done. Especially when you look like a freaking girl.Or:In which a British boy with a lot of baggage reincarnates in the Naruto world before the story starts and tries not to mess it up. Well, too much.





	1. The Beginning

           I didn’t have very high expectations during life, so – of course – I also didn’t have big wonders about death. When one lives like I used to do, there isn’t much left to ponder. Dying is unavoidable and, if you’re lucky enough, welcomed.

            Reincarnation, however, wasn’t considered even in my wildest dreams. If I were being truthful to myself, I didn’t want to _live_ once more. Being alive brought a whole lot of problems that I wasn’t prepared enough to face. I didn’t kill myself in my first lifetime – I wasn’t brave enough to do so – but I certainly didn’t fight against this unstoppable force called Death.

            Everything had been fast. Swift, not unlike taking a Band-Aid off. Except ripping these little buggers off wasn’t painful. Being crushed and pierced to death by shards of glass was. Still, it could’ve been much, much worse. At least, it was an inanimate thing that killed me, instead of a human being. Humans were much crueler than a broken glass panel.

            I would know.

* * *

 

            My new life started like my old one ended – in peaceful silence, in warming acceptance. I closed my eyes and they _burnt_ and suddenly I opened them again and there was a whole world to be seen. It was bright, cozy and unexpectedly calm. There were soft murmurs, but they didn’t faze me. It was much better than the screams I used to hear all the time.

            I was being held and cleaned. I should be ashamed of my naked little body, but something in my brain numbed everything – the sticky and prickly feeling over my skin, the sudden cold as opposed to the previous warmth, the urgency in the murmurs. I sighed and there was absolute silence.

            “Thank God!” Someone shouted and I frowned. Were the people here capable of shouting too? I had resigned myself to these new sensations, this new life, but not so much if sound was part of this place too.

            “He’s a healthy lad,” a masculine voice commented and with sluggish surprise, I noticed that this was the person holding me against their chest. His arms offered me to someone else and I mourned the loss of familiarity, before being enveloped by a sense of security.

            “He is so…” a now feminine voice breathed in my ear. I felt like a baby bird imprinting on its mother, because there was no other way to describe the incredible rush of love that came over me.

            _This._ This one was my Mother here.

            “Beautiful?” The male voice spoke once again. “I know. There’s no other word.”

            The woman must have acquiesced, for I felt her neck and chin softly move against my cheek. Their Japanese sounded weird to my ears, I realized. Not only because my part-Asian family hadn’t spoken the language inside our own home for years, but also because it was worded in a different, perhaps more ancient, manner.

            “What do you wish to call him?” Another feminine voice asked with a tint of happiness, like she was observing a most gleeful scene. I wonder what she saw.

            There was a pause.

            “Kumi,” the feminine voice said and it wasn’t a suggestion. “Namikaze Kumi.”

* * *

 

            This new family of mine was what I dreamt of having in my first life. There was a loving mother, a strong father and a more-than-happy-to-see-me big brother. There was a beautiful house and kind neighbors.

            However, nothing could calm my desperately beating heart. It had been a feeling of wrongness at first, then a confirmation when my brother’s face appeared over the bars of my crib.

            _Namikaze._

            I imagine that other people would be happy to be reborn into this world. As a fan of the Naruto series, I should be as well. Except for the little fact that I had had a hard enough lifetime already and wished to be in Heaven – or whatever place or spiritual state you go after you die.           

            My Mother – the first, if normal, one – died when I was seven. My memories are fuzzy, since suffering covered most of my early childhood memories, but I think it was because of breast cancer. She was Japanese and had been responsible for my sister’s narrowed eyes and my thick black hair.

            My Father, on the other hand, was a British guy responsible for my fair-lighted eyes in my previous life. He used to be a good person before Mother died, I think. I hope. All the suffering he caused to me and my sister couldn’t have been… optional. He had a mental problem. I’m sure of it, because no father would cause his children so much pain if there wasn’t a mental illness involved.

            My sister came to my mind with glaring clarity. She had been one year younger than me, but taller. Always taller, for I had been born premature and my body never became strong enough to grow as one would want. As a child, I envied the others’ perfectly healthy – including my sister’s – body. I wasn’t capable of running for long periods of time or even playing sports. Despite the bitterness her body provoked within me, I had loved her. I had loved her as much as a brother could love his little sister, simply because it hadn’t been her fault that I was born imperfect and she, as healthy as parents could hope for.

            My appearance should have been good, what with my blue – or were they green? – eyes and dark hair. But I wasn’t handsome. I had been scrawny and ugly and weak. No girl or boy would wish for that in a partner. My memories were fading faster than I thought they would, but I was sure I had no friends, because my features scared people off. I wished I could remember what was wrong with my face, but perhaps it was for the best.

            It seemed ironic that in this life I was named “eternal beauty”.

* * *

 

            Minato was the perfect brother, despite being only a silly two-year-old toddler, which absolutely made me cry every time he showed his face in front of me the first three times. Later, I decided that since he was going to be a constant in my life from now on, it would be best to get used to it. Still, the ugly child inside me resented his goodness.

            I was used to being ignored. That, however, was hard to happen in this lifetime. My parents – Daiki and Torii – were always giving me attention. They were in love with each other and it showed in each action, even when taking care me.

            “He’s such a docile infant,” the neighbor, Shiranui Airi, commented sometime during my fourth or fifth month of life. It was hard to discern time, but I’m sure she visited almost every day. Apparently, she and my mother weren’t shinobi like my father and Bokuo-san, Airi-san’s husband.

            “Isn’t he?” My mother agreed, offering a glass of cold lemonade. I was born in December on a particularly cold winter day, which was funny according to my father’s blabbering. Hi no Kuni was a county of warmth,as its name stated.

            “Is Minato-kun being a good older brother? I know he was anxious to meet this little guy here.”

            Through sleepy eyes, I saw Airi-san indicating my tiny body. Sometimes, I found it weird to think of this baby as myself. I wonder if he was supposed to be born before and I had taken over his body, or if he’d have died had I not come to this world.

            Mom giggled softly. I used to hate giggles. Girls giggled all the time when I passed, pointing their sparkly-painted fingers at me, and I remember all too well this feeling of shame. In my new life, however, it wasn’t too hard to love my mother’s laugh. It sounded silly and carefree, which made it easy to understand why Dad had fallen in love with her.

            “Minato-chan is adorable, really,” she confided. Her eyes were very, very pretty, I had noticed earlier on. “Every time someone comes visit us, the first thing he does is going to Kumi and standing in front of him.”

            “Ooh,” Airi-san laughed too. “I bet he’s gonna be the overprotective type.”

            My mother smiled at me and I tried to be awake for the rest of the conversation, but my eyelids were heavy and I simply plunged into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

 

            Chakra was the most curious thing in this world.

            It was a walking contradiction: warm yet cold, fluid yet solid, tangible yet abstract. Most of the time, it was like blood – you couldn’t feel it moving inside you, despite knowing it flowed like a river through its path. When I knowingly learnt to manipulate it, it was a constant reminder of what this world had to offer.

            I could twist it and bend it, but never expel it. Minato spent a lot of my sixth month of life hugging me, claiming that my body was comfortingly hot, and I was aware that it was due to the fact that I spent most of my awake time sending chakra to different parts of my body, testing its flexibility.

            When my muscles finally stopped feeling like jelly, I learnt how to crawl and being a baby didn’t bother me as much as before. Dad followed my everywhere when he was away from missions, apparently amazed by his youngest son’s growth. I spoke my first word when I was only eight months old, a fact that my Mom boasted to everyone who was within her range of Proud Mama Bear.

            Minato was the one with me when I decided to try walking for the first time and this memory stayed with me for longs years to come. I had been speaking for two months already when I finally had felt that my legs were strong enough to carry my own weight. I don’t know what I _expected_ when my brain coordinated with my feet and I wobbled a few meters forward, but it certainly wasn’t for my big brother to burst into tears and go crying to our mother how much _‘Mii-chan was growing and that wasn’t fair!’_.

            All in all, my babyhood passed too slow and too fast. It was a stage of learning, not only because I had to somehow make my tongue not tie every time I decided to speak and my legs not shake every moment I wanted to walk, but also because my feelings from my old life resurfaced at the most inconvenient time. I slept a lot, which made the days pass in blur, but I cried a lot too. I wasn’t an easy baby, I knew, but, more often than not, I caught myself comparing Father and Dad, Mother and Mom, Sister and Brother, and was left feeling bitter.

           Sometimes, I felt as if my old self broke together with that glass panel that pierced me to death and I was left in shards of what I used to be, only for Minato to walk in and make me giggle that annoyingly cute baby laugh.

          I wondered how much longer it would take for me to forget my old life and wondered if I would at all. At times, I couldn’t remember what my tormentors at school had looked like, and other times, it was all too simple to picture my Father’s enraged face when he kicked my guts out.

* * *

 

            The first glimpse I finally got of my new body happened some days after my first birthday. It had been a pretty small affair, with only immediate family. Mom had baked two cakes: one for the rest of them and a smaller one for me. I dived in with the gusto that only babies had when presented with a mountain of mushy chocolate. More often that I’d like to admit, my actions reflected my actual age.

            Mom took lots of photos and Dad just sat through it all with a resigned expression. Minato – the three-year-old devil – ate most of the other cake alone, only to feel nauseated later that night. Had it been my old sister – Dinah? Jenna? –I’d say it was to catch our parents’ attention, but my new brother seemed to genuinely want all the sugar. It was hard having a perfectly loving sibling.

            When Dad revealed the photos a few days later, I discovered how much I fit in this family, after all. I knew that Minato had inherited our Mother’s sunny-blond hair as well as her oval face, but his sky blue eyes and thin nose had come from our Father. In a way, my face was a lot like his – despite the baby fat, I knew that my chin would never be as round as Dad’s and my eyebrows arched slightly up like Mom’s. However, my brother’s features came together to form a distinctly boyish face, while mine was – annoyingly – feminine.

            My hair was longer than it felt, growing in thick baby curls. It was more of a pale golden than Minato’s yellowish blond, which could be attributed to Dad’s light brown curly hair. My eyes, however, were big and doe-like – much bigger than the ones in my past life, which almost could have been Asian. They had no exact color, mimicking Mom’s kaleidoscope ones. My ivory skin would be no darker than porcelain in the future, I knew, no matter how much time I spent under the sun’s rays.

            In a way, I could finally comprehend _why_ my parents had named me Kumi. I certainly was very beautiful – in a girly kind of way – in this lifetime. A part of me practically purred in appreciation, but another part – a shier, more hesitant part that I tucked away every night – trembled at the possibilities.

* * *

 

            “Mii-chan!” Minato called, waving his hands madly on the other side of the living room.

            I was sitting between a giant teddy bear and plushy alphabet-filled blocks, which had honestly kept me entertained for the last few minutes.

            “Minato-chan,” Mom chided gently from the sofa. “Don’t shout so late in the night. The neighbors are probably asleep already.”

            Now that was a lie if I ever heard one. It was only seven o’clock. It worked, though, since brother apologized with a pout on his lips. He stomped his way to me and sat down with a disheartened expression.

            “Mi-chan,” I giggled. I felt proud of myself, somehow. I had overcome these feelings called _bitterness_ and _resentment_ for a while now. My brother no longer seemed perfect in every way possible, which made it easier to love him.

            Said brother shook his head and waved his finger in front of my two-year-old bewildered face.

            “Not Mi-chan,” he scolded with all the seriousness of a four-year-old older brother. “ _Onii-chan_.”

            My air-headed brother had been insisting on the pet name ever since I’d learnt how to speak, but, to his disappointment, I called him nothing except Mi-chan. It was a little retribution for being called Mii-chan myself. It was cute now, but some years in the future people would view me as nothing but a girl.

            Gosh.

            “Mi-chan,” I clapped my hands.

            “Onii-chan.”

            “ _Mi-chan.”_

_“Onii-chan.”_

_“_ Mi!”

            “Onii!”

            “Boys!” Our Mother shouted, exasperated. Her kaleidoscope eyes held a hint of fondness though her face showed nothing but reprehension.

            “Sorry,” we murmured, though mine sounded more like _‘sowwy_ ’ than I’d be willing to admit.

            Minato crossed his arms and leant back against the enormous teddy bear. A few minutes were spent in silence before he finally couldn’t take it anymore, “Ne, Mii-chan, why don’t you call me big brother?”

            I paused. I was surprised by the seriousness of his tone. Mom, Dad and sometimes Airi-san talked to me, but never expecting a real response. In their eyes, I was still a toddler, never mind the fact I could read already and had been speaking for almost two years.

            ‘Mi-chan call Mii-chan,” I explained.

            He tilted his head sideways, “You don’t like being called Mii-chan?” How did he even understand from my super simplistic explanation? Suddenly, I was very aware of the fact of how prodigal Minato would be in the future.

            “Onii-chan,” I crawled the one meter between us, calling him by the holy pet name.

            Minato twisted his lips in the biggest grin ever, resembling his future son, Naruto, so much that I was left blinking.

            “I love you too, Mii-chan!” He hugged me until I couldn’t breathe.

            Well, there goes my idea of being called something more boyish. I couldn’t bring myself to poke fun at my brother anymore by calling him Mi-chan – not after seeing a smile so warm and happy.

            Mom just kept shaking her head at us.

* * *

 

            It was easy to forget how much the real world scared me inside my cozy little home. In my old life, my moments of peace were far and between. I used to go to the library during the weekends even if I had read most of the books there by the time I was thirteen. School had been as frightening as my first home. There was never complete silence or security.

            I always held Minato’s hand for dear life every time Mom took us to the park nearby. He never questioned the action and was more than happy to act as the typical big brother protecting his younger brother. Mom frowned sometimes and encouraged me to play with other children, but gave up very quickly when I showed no signs of taking the initiative. I heard her talking to Dad about it, though they never forced me to do anything I didn’t want to.

            Being bullied all my old life had made shyness and insecurity an ingrained response no matter which body I resided. Feelings like bitterness were simpler to overcome – throw a little love and care and _puff_. Fear, however, was a primal instinct and harder to suppress. I speculated how long it would take me to feel less tense around other children my age.

            My hair had grown longer, long enough to hide my face when others tried to approach me. Maybe they thought I was weird, but Minato was there to be friendly for the two of us. Adults cooed over my apparent cuteness and children liked to ruffle my golden locks in farewell. My mind never relaxed when an unfamiliar hand came near me, however.

            “Mii-chan, let’s go to the park today,” Minato said and, even though he poised it as a question, it sounded like a decision already made.

            I shook my head, pale-golden curls flying everywhere. As I had never cut my hair, it grew thick and curly like a newborn’s. Even though I looked really girly with chin-length hair, I couldn’t bring myself to get it cut. It was just so, so pretty that a part of me wished for it to remain there. It was old ugly ducky talking.

            “Why not?” Minato whined.

            “It’s too hot,” I reasoned with my four-year-old logic. _And too crowded outside_ , I added inwardly.

            Minato was much taller than me, who inherited our Mother’s petite build, so it was with no difficulty that he gathered me up in his arms and twisted my legs around his waist.

            “Mii-chan, it’s _always_ hot in Konoha,” he countered. “And I promised Inoichi that we would play ninja today.”

            Yamanaka Inoichi. I could remember the name well enough, despite the years passed since I’d last seen the Naruto series. He’s going to be Ino’s father and the Head of the T&I Department. Now, on the other hand, he was only a boy with a crooked smile and wicked sense of humor.

            I looked than as I felt Minato sigh.

            “You know what?” He tried to cheer me up. “We’ll stay home today and I’ll make up to him tomorrow.”

            I smiled.

            It was good to be here. I didn’t know how long this happiness would last, but it was good either way. The possibility of this comfortable life ending frequently left me breathless. _All things are difficult before they are easy_ used to be one of my favorite Chinese proverbs, even if things never got easy in my old lifetime.

            I hoped the difficult part had already passed, but who knew? I now lived in the shinobi world.


	2. The Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Namikaze Kumi decides what he can do while in this world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, new story (in this site). It's also posted in Fanfiction.net under the same title, though my username is Amaryllis D. Namikaze. I hope you guys enjoy it!

           I was five when a lonesome shinobi knocked on my home’s door.

            It was already dark outside and since we lived in a pretty central area of Konoha, it was possible to hear soft murmurs from people going to late-closing restaurants and shopkeepers ending their day.

            “Minato, go check who’s knocking, yes?” Mom was stirring something inside the pan while brother and I played chess on the dinner table.

            He nodded, jumping off the chair. With a terrible feeling creeping up my spine, I discreetly observed from the kitchen’s doorframe. Like I said, a lonesome shinobi had been the one calling us that night. I couldn’t hear what he said to my brother, but he made Minato stumble in surprise.

            My small hands gripped the hem of my black shirt. I wished the man would look up, let me see what his eyes told – I didn’t need to listen to his words, just to his eyes – but he never did. The tired-looking ninja bowed, perhaps more than it would be socially necessary, and departed.

            Minato closed the door and, though I could tell he was on the brink of tears, his eyes dulled as soon as he saw me watching him from the kitchen.

            “Onii-chan?” I asked, lightly creasing my forehead. There was something in his baby-blue eyes that made me swallow whatever words I meant to say next, because his usually cheerful blue orbs were no longer light, but dark.

            “Kumi.”

            I had never been called that way by him before.

            “Dad is dead,” he said. My heart stopped beating for a moment, too busy choking up on my throat. “But we’ll be okay. I promise.”

            In a way, it was almost the same – the surprise, the shock, the unexpectedness of it all.When my first Mother died, I remember standing on my living room, in London, and just staring at my Father. He had said it like that too – _Mummy is dead –_ and I remember breaking down in tears. I’m not sure if the tears were mine or my sister’s.

            My eyes were strangely dry, though. My heart thundered under my ribcage, yes, but except for that, I couldn’t feel anything. Everything was quiet.

            “Boys, what’s taking so long..,” Mom stopped, observing the scene in front of her. Minato was standing a few meters from the door, watching me with an unreadable expression and I was simply looking back at him. “What happened? Who knocked?”

            Minato turned to her and, for a brief moment, I wondered if he was pleased with the shortness he could deliver this kind of news. His face betrayed nothing.

            “Dad is dead. But we’ll be okay. I promise.”

            That’s when I threw myself at him; there was no way that he was okay.

* * *

 

            I watched the rain fall with inattentive eyes. I could hear Mom and Minato arguing in the background, but their – now – common topic of fight no longer bothered me.

            When I arrived in this new world, I don’t know what I hoped for. The notion of family had always been a bit skewed to me as well as the idea of having loyal friends. My first Mother died when I was a little older than I am now in this dimension and my Father was the one responsible for most of the scars that had covered my old body.

            I didn’t have very high expectations during life.

            But of course that had changed after I arrived here.

            There was a touch of brightness in Konoha that couldn’t be turned off. It didn’t come from the street lamps or the house lights. Not even sun provided this special clarity. It was like a constant fire – not unmoving, just fluid. It adapted to every situation.

            I wondered where it had gone.

            “Please,” I whispered.

            Father had been bad and Sister had been quiet. They had always been like this, as if there was no other way for them to act. Dinah, or Jenna, or whatever her name had been, had never stood up for me. I used to be the older one, but also the imperfect one. I could endure being ignored. I could endure a beating from my Father.

           I could endure anything. Anything but my most precious people fighting.

            “Please,” I cried.

            They both stopped. The funeral had happened a couple of days ago and this was the most silent they were since then.

            “Mii-chan?” Minato called, hesitant.

            I turned around to look at their worried expressions. Mom’s kaleidoscope eyes were trying oh-so-hard to remain strong and Minato’s chin was jutting out with more determination than it was fair.

            “Can we not fight?” The ground was very interesting when you suddenly had no courage to say the words you wished to speak. “Daddy…”

            “Oh, baby,” Mom started. I felt her arms embracing my small frame and felt as her hands raised me up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel sad.”

            With a startled gasp, I realized that this – _love love love_ – was what I needed. The first and the second time. Not gut-wrecking beating or scarring bullying or even cold dismissal. I craved for tenderness and softness and just the right amount of care.

            “Mii-chan?” Minato stood up on tiptoes to look me in the eyes while I was being held in our mother’s arms. “I’ll protect you, ‘kay?”

            I closed my eyes and nodded. That’s what I wanted.

* * *

 

            Minato was eight when he entered the Academy for Young Shinobi and Kunoichi. Mom and he had been fighting about his decision to become a ninja ever since Dad died on a mission, but he was adamant on getting stronger.

            I hadn’t thought about what I wanted to do with my life here. It was simple to just laze around as toddler and hope for the best, but the Naruto world wouldn’t let me forget how dangerous it was for very much longer.

            If I sat around doing nothing, History would remain the same. Minato would die almost two decades from now and I’d be left with… who? Namikaze Torii was never mentioned in the original plotline, which made me wonder what happened with Mom during those years.

            It all came down to my own selfish desires. I had enjoyed the _Naruto_ verse while I read it, of course, but was Naruto – the still-to-be-born person – my first concern? Truthfully speaking, the years spent here had dulled whatever sense of attachment that I felt toward any – previously fictional – character.

            I mean, I didn’t exactly shiver in excitement every time I saw a familiar face. Inoichi, for example, was an awesome person in the story plotline, but did he make somersault inside every time I saw his almost girly face? No. So, I supposed I was entitled to feel whatever I wanted to feel with no guilty whatsoever.

            I’d been reborn in the Naruto world as Namikaze Minato’s younger brother. My first concern was keeping my brother alive in the long run, simply because he was my most precious person here and I loved him from the very bottom of my heart.

            Yes, it took me awhile to admit this. Period.

            I was aware of my faults very clearly, if only because nobody in my past life let me forget them. I was selfish, always taking care of myself first and foremost. I didn’t trust very easily – which could have been a good thing, except it made me a bit anti-social. And most important of all: I became bitter over facts and things in a heartbeat. That is perfectly shown in how I treated my older brother when I first arrived here; hell, it took me months before I even started accepting the fact that Minato was here to stay.

            So, yes, I was a very awkward child.

            I was brought out of my musings when a voice spoke a few meters from me.

            “Do you mind if we sit here?” It sounded young, which made me look up, startled.

            I was in a secluded part of the park, away from the children’s playground if only to keep myself isolated. My days were lonely without Minato around and Mom had started working more shifts in the clothing store she antecedently part-timed at. This independence wasn’t new as much as it was nostalgic. I thought I could handle it well, considering how many years I spent figuratively alone before coming here.

            The cruel thing about life in general is that, after having the toy given, it’s much harder to take it back.

            The only thing that prevented me from jumping up and down like the young child I was supposed to be was the person’s – or people’s – appearance. The one who had spoken was slightly taller, thinner too. His eyes were a very deep green color with no pupils, which complemented his short dirty-blond locks rather well. He looked scarily familiar, though I couldn’t tell why. And the second one was almost a carbon copy of Shikamaru, with the most noticeable difference being small freckles over his nose.

            “Go ahead,” I managed to blurt out after a few seconds of awkward staring. It was the first time that someone so clearly connected to the canon characters spoke to me – not counting the times I hid behind Minato when he spoke to Inoichi – which surprised me a bit.

            They sat – the blond, carefully; the Shikamaru-clone, lazily.

            I couldn’t help it, I smiled a little. It obviously made my annoyingly feminine face less unwelcoming, because the blond spoke as soon as my lips turned up, “My name is Yamanaka Ren and this lazy bum here is Nara Chitarō.”

            Chitarō? Ren? I wondered if they existed in the original world of Naruto, but since it seemed arrogant of me to think the contrary, I simply switched to pondering what happened to them in the future.

            “I’m Namikaze Kumi,” I introduced myself.

            I was already six in this world, but had never made a friend outside of my family and didn’t bother talking all that much with strangers. It may sound lonely, but before Minato started studying and Mom, working, it had never bothered me before. The solitude was very, very familiar to me.

            To my surprise, Ren blinked in bewilderment.

            “You’re Minato’s baby brother?” Seeing my hesitance, he smiled reassuringly. It was funny, in a way, seeing a seven or eight-year-old comforting a teenager. A decidedly broken-to-pieces one, but a teenager nevertheless. “Hey, it’s ok. My older brother, Inoichi, is a good friend of your brother. And, heck, I know Minato well enough too.”

            I relaxed. A second later, observing Ren’s friendly expression, I couldn’t fathom why I had tensed at all.

            “Huh, I thought you were a girl,” Chitarō added his two cents.

            My immediate reaction was to glare at him, though being called girly had never irritated me before. I mean, I myself thought that my features came together to form a feminine face. Being outright called a girl, however, was a new experience.

            “Chita!” Ren scolded after Chitarō stared at me for a few seconds, completely unaffected by my glare. I wish my eyes would narrow menacingly like Minato’s, but they never did.

            “Ok, ok,” the Nara sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, and will you please accept my apology?”

            It was recited in such a rehearsed fashion that I couldn’t help but giggle. From the tone of Ren’s voice and the perfectly spoken words spilled from Chitarō’s mouth, I had no doubts about the frequency of this kind of situations taking place.

            “How did you two became friends?” I asked, genuinely curious. I had never understood this _friendship thingy_ – and, goodness, spending such a long time in a child’s body was affecting my mind – since I had never had friends before. Well, I had books and for me it was almost the same, but most people would think it weird.

            Chitarō yawned in trued Nara fashion before replying, “Well, Aniki is friends with Inoichi.”

            I tilted my head sideways, ahabit brought from my old life.

            “Aniki?”

            “Un,” he nodded. “Nara Shikaku.”

            Well, that explained why he looked so much like Shikamaru. He was the guy’s uncle – or would be uncle. Whatever. Everyone in the Nara clan looked alike; it was impressive, in a way.

            “I heard that Minato skipped two grades in the Academy already,” Ren started after a few seconds of boring silence. He sounded pretty excited about the fact. “I didn’t have the chance to ask him himself and my brother likes to mess with me; is it true?”

            I nodded my head. Minato had been thrilled last week when he announced during dinner that his teacher deemed him advanced enough to skip classes. Apparently, instead of spending four years in the Academy, he would study for only two. I wasn’t exactly surprised – my brother had always been brilliant – but Mom had been especially silent that night.

            “Wow,” Ren made.

            Chitarō rolled his eyes, “Why are you so impressed? There are geniuses every generation.”

            Ren pouted and I was reminded of their – and mine – age for a moment. It was easy to forget how young you actually are when you spend so much time alone with the mentality of a sixteen-year-old boy.

            Crossing his arms, he looked away for a moment, “It’s just… It’s so cool to know a prodigy, don’t you think?”

            “Yeah, if they aren’t stuck-up pricks like the majority of them appear to be,” was the Nara’s response. And after watching the entire _Naruto_ series, it sounded fair enough.

            I still rose to my brother’s defense like a good little duck, though, “Hey!”

            They looked at me, surprised by my shout. I was too. Minato called an ‘old soul’, because I rarely raised my voice and could have infinite patience when he started chatting about anything at all. Had it not been my obvious shyness in front of new people, I’d be a pretty mature person.

            “Does Minato teach you anything? Nii-san is _so_ unfair,” Ren returned to his babbling. This little – even though he was at least ten centimeters taller – guy could talk all day, no doubt. “Tou-san taught me how to mold chakra and how to throw shurikens, but he said that anything more can wait a few more months.”

            Ren sounded upset about it and it was somewhat funny, so I couldn’t hide a smile once again. He grinned, seeing my lips twitching.

            “Onii-chan taught me how to throw shurikens, but Dad,” my pause was so brief that I wondered if they noticed. Chitarō probably had, judging by his expression, but he said nothing. “Was the one to teach me how to write and read, as well as mold chakra.”

            Well, actually, I taught the last one myself. I couldn’t explain it to them, however, how I spent my babyhood. Chakra _was_ quite easy to control – most likely because I had never had it before, which made me aware of this flowing energy all the time.

            “Nice!” Ren grinned wider. It was infectious, I found out.

            Chitarō rolled his eyes at our enthusiasm. Yawning for what could be the fourth time in ten minutes, he stretched over the grass like a cat under the sun.

            “Chita here is a prodigy too, but he’s too modest to show off,” Ren explained, pointing his thumb at the guy beside him.

            The Nara opened one eye, “I’m not a _prodigy_ ,” he drawled the word, almost mocking it. “My brother is ten times more intelligent than me. It just so happens that every kid in our class is dumb.”

            My eyebrows arched up. It sounded mean to say that about a bunch of kids, but I had heard much worse directed toward me. I couldn’t fault his argument, though, especially the part about Shikaku. If the series was anything to go by, the man was a sheer genius at strategies.

            One thing caught my attention.

            “In your class? I thought the Academy only accepted people older than eight?” I would guess they were around seven, but who knew? I looked younger than my already-too-young six years of life.

            I was caught off guard by Ren’s smirk, “It does – we’re just too good.”

            “If by too good you mean already capable of basic History and writing, yeah, we’re too good,” Chitarō intoned.

            Ren pouted once more, “Gosh, Chita, let me impress our new friend, will you?”

            _New friend._

            I admit, it made me light-headed to hear the word friend. I thought that loneliness was something you simply got used to. Drowning in books had been my way of forgetting the real world and even though I loved all types of stories, friendship-focused ones had never held my attention for too long. It left a horrible taste in my mouth afterwards and I simply started avoiding them. I thought to myself more often than not _I don’t need friends_ , because I somehow convinced my brain of it.

            Naruto had never been my favorite character in the series. I couldn’t identify myself with him. He was someone who desperately wanted to acknowledged and wanted friends more than anything. Me? I was sure that being alone was better than not.

            I was astonished to discover that the word friend could evoke such a positive reaction out of me.

            “Kumi?” Ren called me and I realized that I had daydreamt for a moment here.

            “Uh, sorry,” I apologized. _Way to go, Kumi, that’s how you make friends._ Not.

            “Nah, it’s okay. Chita frequently sleeps in the middle of our talks,” he shrugged, not really bothered. “I was saying you could try to enter the Academy, you know? You said that you can write and read, right? As long as you prove it to the teachers, I’m sure they won’t mind a person younger than usual.”

            It terrified how excited I was with the idea. It would bring me closer to my sole objective in this life – protecting Minato – as well as enable me to get to know Ren and Chitarō better.

            “Sure, I’ll ask Onii-chan tonight,” I answered with a little smile of my own.

* * *

 

            “Absolutely not,” were the words I heard as soon as I uttered my question.

            I looked down, troubled. I had never disagreed with Minato in something so important.

            “Why not?” I tried to keep my tone steady like my brother always manage, but a whine escaped its way through my lips. It was disheartening, sometimes, to see how Minato could be more mature than a sixteen-year-old teenager.

            “First, because Mom would go insane with worry. Second, because it’s too dangerous,” he explained, stirring the stew inside the pot. Since Mom would arrive later today, we decided to eat dinner without her. I could cook better than my brother, but he insisted in handling the fire parts like always.

            “Why would she go insane with worry?” I was curious. Mom had let Minato go to the Academy and Dad had been a shinobi. She worried a lot, yes, about my older brother’s future, but never outright prohibited him for pursuing his goals.

            “Because you’re her baby,” he deadpanned.

            I blushed, looking away. Minato sighed, bending his knees so his blue eyes met my kaleidoscope ones.

            “You’re my baby brother and I really, really don’t want to see you hurt. I’d go crazy with fury and probably do something stupid. So, for both our sakes, don’t become a shinobi.”

            It sounded unfair. I had had many unfair situations thrown at me in my last life. Mother had died, Father had gone practically insane in his despair, Sister had withdrawn herself from my life altogether and Bullies were more than glad to grind into dust whatever had remained of my own shards of depression. I’d spent days cooped up inside an old library buildings with spiders and books as my constant company.

            I was tired of unfairness.

            I thought about Ren’s excited grin and Chitarō’s lazy contentment this afternoon. I thought about the long hours we spent in each other’s company. And, finally, I thought about Minato’s future.

            “I don’t care,” I whispered. I gulped down my fear of rejection and raised my head, staring right into my brother’s surprised eyes. “I want to protect you too.”

            There were many more things I wanted to say.

            _I made friends today, you know?_

_I want to be able to smile this time around._

_I discovered that loneliness is a bitter, ugly child._

_I love you._

_Please._

But I kept quiet. I didn’t want to start bawling, because I’d never be taken seriously this way. I wanted to stay with Minato many and many more years to come, so I forced the tears away and observed his thoughtful blue eyes.

            Suddenly, he smiled. It wasn’t his usual wide grin, but a much more serene one.

            “I won’t promise you anything,” was his reply. _But I can try to make your wish come true_ , his smile told me.

            _Thank you._

            Courage tasted surprisingly good.


	3. The Group

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi is definitely not a girl, thank you very much.

            “Class, this is Namikaze Kumi – he’s going to be with us from now on,” the teacher, Saki-sensei, explained to a group of thirty children or so.

            I looked down, avoiding their curious eyes. For starters, I was too small to be a eight-year-old – heck, I was too small to be a seven-year-old, like some children were according to Ren’s explanation. And I was entering in the second period of the school year.

            “You can sit beside Kihito-kun, Kumi-chan,” Saki-sensei indicated a pretty reserved boy sitting on the far left corner of the classroom. Nodding in thanks, I made my way to the vacant chair. Ren waved excited from his chair beside a sleeping Chitarō.

            As the teacher started on his lesson – apparently, about the First Shinobi War, a topic that Minato had already discussed in length with me – I discreetly observed the boy on my right. He wasn’t as tall as Ren or Chitarō, but wasn’t short enough to be considered below average. His appearance was so common in the Fire Country – dark brown hair and eyes – that it took me awhile until I finally realized why he looked especially familiar: his face was just like Konohamaru’s. Well, it seems the mysterious father made himself known.

            “It’s rude to stare, you know,” the boy, at last identified as Konohamaru’s Dad, commented nonchalantly. He didn’t look particularly bothered, despite his words.

          “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry,” I apologized, sure that my cheeks were warming against my will. Goodness, that’s what solitude causes to your development: a spluttering mess.

            He shrugged, “I’m used to it, since, you know, Dad and all.”

           I wondered if _you know_ was a tick of him. I nodded, only associating who his dad was – the Sandaime, of course – after doing so. I was being slow today; lucky me Minato wasn’t in my classroom or he would be having a field day with my clumsiness. He always found it cute how I just shut other people out, even if my parents worried about it.

           “Name’s Sarutobi Kihito, by the way,” the brown-haired boy extended his hand and I shook it politely. He looked nice enough for me, which made me calmer.

           I turned my attention back to Saki-sensei and refrained from sighing when I noticed how he was still explaining the consequences of the First Shinobi War. I knew all this already – not only because I had started reading books in this life as soon as I reached a reasonable enough age, but also because Minato never shut up about, well, anything. My older brother was a bookworm, just not of the same kind I was.

           It looked like I was in for very, very boring years.

* * *

 

            By lunch time, I discovered that Ren was right about my enrollment on the Academy being no problem despite my young age. The first year in the Shinobi School had no physical training whatsoever, being dedicated to writing skills, math, history and geography lessons. The closer we came to being taught about how to mold chakra was through theoretical exercises that made me ponder about their usefulness at all – they made me comprehend _what_ this energy inside me was, but did they really think that children would understand it without _feeling_ it? I was sure the only reason I understood as well as I did was because of my capacity to control it.

            In the end, however, I wanted to do what I told Minato: protect him and my loved ones. I endured the most boring hours since my being here and tried not to yawn every five minutes. If there was one thing I could be confident about myself was my capacity to read and learn.

            “You looked as bored as Chita,” Ren said as soon as he sat on a chair in front of me during lunchtime.

            “I feel as bored as Chitarō,” I replied with no bite.

           Today had been my turn to make the bentos and I had taken comfort in making my favorite quick-to-make foods: salt rice balls (or onigiri), octopus-filled takoyaki and – just to feel safe, my favorite thing from my very British old life – fish and chips. I remember when I deemed myself skilled enough in the art of cooking (in this life, I mean) to not seem weird that I was trying to make my own dishes. Of course fish and chips already existed, _for me_ , but dear, it had been funny to see Minato’s creeped out face the first time.

           Funnily enough, I noticed Ren eyeing said food with confusion.

           “What’s this?” It would be a rude question if he wasn’t a kid.

           Chitarō’s nose twitched in an appreciative way, “Smells fishy.”

           “What have I told you about being tactless?” Ren scolded, even though he had been just as tactless two seconds earlier. Children. Go figure.

           I laughed.

           “It’s okay, Ren. Chitarō is right – it _is_ fish.”

           The Nara boy frowned.

           “You can call me Chita too,” he decided, before promptly laying his head on the table. Wow. He was worse than Shikamaru. That took some mad skills.

           Ren began munching on his own rice balls after briefly poking Chitarō’s side and forcing him to eat. I couldn’t help but notice how much of a mother-hen he was.

           “Are you following the lesson well enough, Kumi-chan?” He asked not unkindly. I suppose I should be annoyed by the _–chan_ , but I couldn’t bring myself to call him on it. Not to mention that, by now, most of the class probably thought I was a girl, anyway.

           I nodded, struggling with the disposable chopsticks, just to discover that this pair was defective. I accepted Chitarō’s ones with a smile and observed as Ren scolded him for not eating.

           “It seems easy for now,” I finally answered. “Onii-chan doesn’t stop talking about his lessons, either way.”

           Chitarō rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like ‘Typical Minato’. To make us even for the chopsticks, I presented a takoyaki just in front of his mouth, so he wouldn’t have to lift his head at all from the table. He grinned, accepting the treat.

           It was Ren’s turn to roll his eyes at us.

           A comfortable silence descended on our table as we kept eating. I took this time as an opportunity to look around the classroom. Most kids ate outside and those who chose not to were sitting in small groups. A small girl – not quite the same tall as I, but closer than anybody else nevertheless – was sitting by the window alone.

           “Who is she?” I whispered, indicating with my head the person I was talking about. My blond hair, now in much looser baby ringlets than in the past, flew away from my face as I jutted my chin in her direction.

           “Hm?” Chitarō raised his head a little. “Ah. That’s Uchiha Mikoto.”

           I blinked. Sasuke’s mother? She looked lovely in the _Naruto_ verse. I couldn’t fathom why she would be sitting alone.

          “She’s the daughter of the Clan Head,” Ren explained, observing my creasing forehead. “But not the Heir – that’s her younger brother. He’s still too young to be here, though.”

           “Why is she alone?”

           Was it arrogant of me to worry about her? Probably, yes. Until one week ago, _I_ was the one with no friends and I’m sure that if Chitarō and Ren hadn’t come to me that day on the park, it would remain so. Minato was my older brother, but to have friends, well, that had to come from me and me alone.

            “The non-clan kids are usually too scared,” Ren answered and there was a different tone in his voice I didn’t expect.

            I turned my eyes from Mikoto to my friend. His usually cheerful deep-forest green eyes were shadowed. I wanted to extend my hand, perhaps pat his head, but I refrained from doing so. I wasn’t confident enough about it. Not yet.

            Either way, Chitarō flicked his brow affectionately.

            “Idiot, don’t think too hard or you might explode.”

            Two mother-hens, then.

* * *

 

            I had thought about questioning Minato about what Ren could have meant with his icy comment. I gave up at the last minute, however. I wanted to discover it by myself and, frankly, my older brother was getting busier and busier. It made me lonely, yes, but Chitarō and Ren filled his blank if only a little.

            My answer presented itself a few days later, while I was walking to the Academy.

            It was sunny – like it always was during summer – and people were chatting animatedly in the streets. Minato had gone earlier, apparently there was a teammate he wanted to talk to, and I was left to my own devices when Mom went to work.

            “I’ll come back earlier today, alright, sweetie?” She kissed the crown of my head and my mouth turned up in a soft smile.

            “Yes!” She laughed at my unexpected enthusiasm and bade goodbye.

           I gathered my school bag and closed the door behind me. On the Academy’s patio, that’s where I noticed _it_.

           Mikoto was sitting by herself in the swing, as usual. A couple of civilian kids from my class – Rin? Kin? Gin? – were running to and fro in what appeared to be a game of tag. Good two meters before the small Uchiha, however, one of them tripped and fell just in front of her.

           “S-Sorry!” the boy – _Jin_ , I suddenly remembered – was almost in tears.

           Mikoto reached out with her pale hand to help him get up, but Jin scrambled back in panic.

           “Sorry, Uchiha-sama!” And he took off running with his tag-friend.

           Mikoto’s hopeful eyes dulled and she kicked a rock by her feet. I frowned. Why were they afraid of her? But as the day stretched, I noticed other small things. They weren’t afraid of _only_ her. The civilian kids gave all the clan kids a wide berth. There was Inuzuka Tsume in my class – Kiba’s mother surely made herself known – Sarutobi Kihito and my own friends, Ren and Chitarō. Truthfully enough, they were always by themselves.

_The non-clan kids are usually too scared_ , Ren had said. Scared of what? The clan kids? Why would they be scared of other kids? I had been bullied for years, but, in the end, I’d never comprehend why someone would ignore or bully another person. I knew how painful it was to be lonely and would never wish it on anybody.

           Which is exactly why, the very next day, I mustered all the courage I could gather and walked toward Mikoto. It may sound pathetic, but my hands were shaking.

           Would she think me weird? All the children I had tried to befriend in my old life thought so. I was ‘the ugly’, the ‘creepy’, the ‘face freak’. Sister herself told me how horrible was my appearance. I had loved her, though, because she cared enough to talk to me not shouting. I _was_ pathetic.

         Sighing, I felt more than saw the way my golden curls repositioned themselves over my head with my sigh. It was comforting, if only to remind me of my new appearance, one much more pleasing to the eye.

          “Hello,” I greeted the Uchiha girl. “Can I sit here?”

           Ren and Chitaro’s strategy sounded like a good one. I made sure that my _Can I sit here?_ was softly said, which contributed to my even girly features.

           Mikoto looked up and I finally got a good glimpse of her face. She was delicate – there was no other word. Her eyes were two round orbs of onyx and long eyelashes blinked owlishly at me. Pale skin, pitch-black hair and cupid bow mouth.

           I fear for humanity if they think that such an innocent looking girl is to be scared of.

           “S-Sure,” she stammered much like I had done three weeks ago.

            I extend my hand for her to shake – taking a leaf out of Kihito’s book – and introduced myself, “I’m Namikaze Kumi. It’s nice to meet you.”

            There. I said it. _Hands, you can’t stop trembling now_. Her eyes darted to my hand, smaller than ever hers, and she took it. _Stomach, you may settle down too._

            “Uchiha Mi-Mikoto. It’s nice to meet you too,” she smiled and I saw a dimple on her left cheek. How cute.

            “ _Kumi-chan!”_ I heard Ren’s voice practically sing from the doorway. He searched the classroom and grinned when he saw me sitting close to the window. Chitarō followed him dutifully as always. “Good morning! You won’t believe what Tou-san told me!”

            Just like that, our trio became a quartet. When Kihito arrived, I grabed his hand and forced him to leave his corner. Inuzuka Tsume was much easier to convince. By the end of the day, our quartet became a group and we were all satisfied by the arrangement.

            The civilian kids’ fear was never mentioned again and I didn’t ask them about.

            It crossed my mind from time to time, though.

* * *

 

            The funny thing about being a girly boy is: it isn’t funny.

            No, really. During my babyhood and toddlerhood, many adults complimented my parents on my – _‘Very, very cute!’ –_ appearance. The older I got, however, the more girly I became. It must be the long hair.

            This was proved during a rare rainy day. It was weekend and my new group of friends had decided to gather in Chitarō’s house. We hadn’t planned on raining, so we didn’t have much to do outside, but none of us were really bothered by it.

            Tsume was shuffling a deck of cards and showing off to an impressed Mikoto and almost bored Kihito. Chitarō was doing what he did best – sleep – and Ren was busying himself with snacks prepared by the Nara boy’s mother, Suzume. I was sketching their faces on a random paper and, I must say, it was pretty good for a person with no artistic talent in the past life whatsoever.

            “Tadaima,” someone greeted from the door. It sounded young enough not to be an adult, but too young to be our age. I didn’t have to guess, though, because the person poked his head in the living room a second later.

            Nara Shikaku looked a lot like Chitarō and Shikamaru – or better yet, they looked a lot like him. His hair, however, was pitch-black in contrast to his son’s dark brown and his eyes were much sharper than Chitarō’s.

            “Oh, new friends, Chita?” He smirked and I was surprised. All the times he had appeared on screen, his character looked as lazy as his future son. “Nice to see you working.”

            Ren waved enthusiastically, “Were you at my house, Shika?”

            Shikaku nodded and observed our young faces, obviously trying to recognize us. Chitarō rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

            “You could just ask for their names, Aniki, there’s no need to go full genius on us,” he commented off-handedly. I stifled a laugh and Chitarō’s hand fell over my head, patting it fondly.

            “Inuzuka Tsume is the name!” Said person introduced herself, jumping up and making a peace sign. It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes to discover how energetic the Inuzuka heir was. In a way, Ren and she were the ones that got our group moving.

            “Nice to meet you, Nara-sempai – I am Uchiha Mikoto,” the small Uchiha said, bowing politely. Trust Mikoto to be the good one of us.

            Shikaku waved her formality away, “Shikaku is fine – honorifics are so troublesome.”

            I blinked at the word.

            “Sarutobi Kihito,” was all what the Sandaime’s son said. Typical Kihito. If his eyes and hair were a few shades darker, you’d think he was an Uchiha with his attitude.

            Belatedly realizing that it was my turn when Shikaku turned his eyes to me, I spoked up, “Uh, Namikaze K-Kumi.”

            I had wrongly thought that gazing into Shikaku’s eyes would be the same as looking at my brother’s eyes. It was not. Minato was a kind spirit, always trying to include others and using his intellect for everybody’s benefit. Shikaku’s assessed your very being, judging its worth. How scary.

            He blinked and his posture slouched, “Minato’s brother? Thought you were a girl at first glance,” he admitted.

           My left eyebrow twitched when everybody except the two Nara and Ren lost their composure and went _“EH?!”_. To my deep annoyance, Ren started laughing with no care in the world.

           “You – ah – thought Ku – ha – mi-chan was – ah, oh God – a _girl_?” He managed to ask between snorts. “That’s too precious! Ha ha ha!”

           My cheeks started burning against my will and I was grateful when Chitarō hit the back of Ren’s head to shut him up. Mikoto tried to stutter out an apology while Tsume gathered the longest strands of my hair in her hands, examining it.

           “No way,” she sniffed, reminding me of her clan. “It smells like vanilla, dude.”

           Despite the weird action – who the hell smells other persons’ hair so casually? – the word ‘dude’ made me grin. First guy word said to me in this world, really.

           Kihito clicked his tongue, “You can stop apologizing now, Mikoto-chan,” he tried to calm the smaller child. “It’s not your fault Kumi-chan is more girly than anyone else in this room.”

           “Hey!” I abandoned my embarrassment to rise to my defense.

          In the midst of it all stood Shikaku looking absolutely incredulous at the scene. Chitarō was standing beside his brother, snickering. His forehead came up to his older brother’s collarbone. The irritating thing was that the top of my head would reach just under his elbow.

           “Ren is right, though,” the younger of the Nara siblings noted. “Have you guys been thinking that Kumi was a girl all this time? We _have_ known each other for a few weeks already.”

           To my glee, Mikoto, Kihito and Tsume’s cheeks were red from shame. The Sarutobi boy was the first to recover.

           “Well, it isn’t as if Kumi-chan looks like a boy, you know?” Ah. There comes his tick.

            “Yeah, yeah. And everybody calls him Kumi-chan all the freaking time,” Tsume was quick to agree.

            Ren turned to Chitarō, a grin on his lips, “Ne, do you think everybody in our class thinks of Kumi-chan as a girl?”

            Chitarō shrugged, not very worried.

            “Probably.”

            It was my turn to blush again. I looked down, biting my lip. Did it bother me that everybody thought of me as girl? _Should_ it bother me? I mean, at the end of the day, I still have my sixteen-year-old mentality and it sounded silly of me to get upset over it. Which is why I had never been bothered enough to go and cut my hair.

            I felt someone patting my head and looked up, expecting Chitarō, but it was his brother. Huh – he probably thought I had gotten disconcerted at my friends’ conversation. I turned the corner of my lips up if only to show that everything was okay. That’s what I liked about the Naras: they were calm and cared about you if you were their friend.

            Suddenly, Mikoto sat in front of me. Her big, black eyes were worried.

            “I’m sorry, Kumi-chan,” she apologized once more.

            I smiled at her, genuinely touched.

            “It’s okay, Ko-chan,” the nickname spilled from my lips before I could stop it. “It really isn’t your fault.”

            “Hey, guys, it stopped raining,” Ren excitedly announced. “Who wants to go outside? Chita has some targets in the backyard, we could practice a little!”

            “I’m game,” Tsume agreed, quickly following the dirty-blond boy to the backdoor.

            Kihito sighed, murmuring something akin to ‘Someone has to control those hooligans, you know’. Shikaku excused himself without much ceremony while Chitarō came closer to me and Mikoto, offering a hand to haul each of us up.

            “You’d think it is Ren’s house with the way he’s so comfortable,” the Nara boy drawled. “Troublesome.”

            Mikoto and I shared a smiled. For all that Chitarō complained, Ren was his best friend no matter what and it was obvious in their interactions. With a light heart, I entered the backyard with new friends.

            It was good to feel wanted.


	4. The Outsider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Uzumaki Kushina is kind of too much for a first meeting - and Kumi really has other things to worry about.

            “C’mon, Mii-chan, just four more,” Minato encouraged from the sidelines, already finished with his repetitions.

            I huffed – out of breath and exasperated – before giving him my best glare. I was told, by him and by a very sincere-and-laughing Tsume, that my evil eyes weren’t exactly _evil._ They were much too big and colorful to be anything but cute. Minato’s words, not mine. As if he had a super manly face, anyway.

            I gave up trying to glare at him and finished the damned sit-ups. Truth is: my new body wasn’t all that different from the old one. I could run, jump and had amazing flexibility, alright, but my thin legs and tiny hands weren’t exactly made for powerful taijutsu stances. Which worried my older brother a lot. Thus, here were we, following a carefully crafted trained regimen.

            My area of expertise – if a seven-year-old Academy could have one – was Ninjutsu. It came as easily as breathing, which was kind of cool. I already knew the three basic jutsu and few more simples tricks using chakra, despite having only started to officially mold said energy a couple of months ago. It was easy to control as it was such a foreign feeling my body.

            “Good job,” Minato praised me with a smile, as always. He passed me a water bottle that I gratefully accepted. “You’re lasting longer already.”

            I rolled my eyes at this, “Onii-chan, we started this regimen three weeks ago. There’s no way I’m stronger _already_.”

            Minato made a silly expression family enough to me – it was the _big brother crying face_. It could also be dubbed as _the moment Minato loses all his pride and acts like a mother-hen._

            “Mii-chan, you didn’t use to be so sassy,” his blue eyes comically teared up. “You spent too much time with your new friends and don’t bother with Onii-chan anymore.”

            I sighed at his silliness. Only Minato would think that. It was so clear to everybody else how much I admired my older brother. Kihito certainly liked to laugh at me about this, declaring me as the “baby-chan” of the group.

            “Onii-chan, don’t be unreasonable, please.”

            “See what I mean? I miss the days that you’d run to my direction shouting _Onii-chan! Onii-chan!_ It was the cutest thing ever,” he wailed. So much for being the perfect Namikaze Minato. And since when I ran in his direction shouting _Onii-chan_ , anyway?

            Against my will – as always – I felt my cheeks warming up. It was like people in this world lived solely for the reason of making me embarrassed, seriously. Tsume and Kihito’s favorite hobby was pinching my cheeks and fighting over whose turn it was to spin around with me in their arms. You would think I was three, instead of seven, with how much they wanted to pick me up. Most of the time, Mikoto was there to save me from the embarrassment their actions could cause me. Bless her heart.

            I let Minato be his silly self for a while more before grabbing the hem of shirt and forcing him to sit down once again. He did so without complaint.

            “Ne, Mii-chan, perhaps I could find another style for you to fall on instead of the Academy one,” Minato suggested, observing me from the corner of his eyes.

            I pondered over the suggestion for a few minutes, pretending to observe the birds flying over the school’s training ground. The Academy’s taijutsu stances were obviously made for people of smaller stature, since children were more likely to fight against bigger opponents. By the last year of formal ninja training, however, most students started searching for another method of hand-to-hand combat, as the majority of us would reach an at least average height.

            Logically speaking, the Academy taijutsu or even a variation of it would be perfect for me. I could always hit a growth spurt during puberty, of course, but I didn’t count on that very much – Mom was a very petite woman, standing at just 150cm tall and, from the looks of it, I wouldn’t be much better. Which were all the more reasons to simply accept the stances already taught to me and move on.

            The only problem being: they didn’t feel right. Most parts of the katas included punches aimed at lower parts of the enemy’s body and rolling away as a method of dodging. But while this body – _my body_ – didn’t have a lot of strength, it had a lot of natural flexibility and speed, which didn’t mix all too well with the Academy taijutsu.

            So I turned my head to Minato and told him just that.

            “Wow, you really thought about this,” he commented, impressed. Hah. As if he hadn’t thought about it himself before offering to teach another method of hand-hand combat.

            I had learnt through the years that Minato carefully thought about everything. He was a worrier and that was his job.

            “Well, it’s not as if these pathetic hands can do much, is it?” I sighed, showing him my small fingers and glove-covered palms. I had taken to wearing fingerless gloves with metal plates on the back after starting to learn how to fight and getting bruises in my wrists from blocking my opponents’ attacks.

            “Hey,” he chided, snaking an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t be so down, buddy, you’re great at many things.”

            I allowed a smile to form on my face and Minato, seeing it, grinned widely. With his yellow-blond hair getting wilder and wilder each passing day, it was easier to see Naruto in him than the calm and controlled man he would become later on.

            “How is your Genjutsu coming along?” Minato asked, getting up to gather our things.

            Sprawling on the grass field, I answered without much enthusiasm, “It’s easy enough to dispel them. Sensei has just started teaching us how to make one, though.”

            Truthfully speaking, Genjutsu was very boring. There were many possibilities, no doubt about it, but as someone who had had a very weak body in my past life, the art of creating illusions was tedious. I loved the way my new body could move and tumble around, even if my hits were as weak as a baby bird’s.

            Minato hummed in agreement, “You probably won’t like Genjutsu too much, Mii-chan, don’t worry about it.”

            I sat up, arching one eyebrow.

            “Why wouldn’t I like it?” After all, my chakra control was very good, in fact, one of the best in class. Most Genjutsu users were known for being chakra control freaks, right behind medic-nins.

            Minato came closer, holding our bags. He smiled at me, patting my head. What was with everybody and head patting?

            “I saw you practicing Ninjutsu the other day and it seemed to me that you were having a lot of fun,” was his gentle reply. “Not to mention that your chakra pools are big enough to become a specialist in Ninjutsu.”

            Well, that was true. Girls usually had smaller chakra reserves and better control. As the latter obviously wasn’t a problem for me, I had the advantage of being a boy – no matter how unlike one was my appearance – with bigger chakra pools. I was no jinchūriki, but I could see from where Minato got his Hokage-sized reserves in the future.

            “I would like to know my chakra nature, but Saki-sensei wouldn’t give me test papers,” I looked away, _not pouting_ at all. “He says that I’m too young.”

            Minato ruffled my hair affectionately, “During your last year they will test it, you just have to be patient.”

            “Yours is wind, right?” I turned my kaleidoscope eyes to him, interested. Wind sounded cool enough and it was pretty rare too, which made it even more appealing.

            The older of us nodded, “Un.”

            I was about to ask him if it was easy to make it as thin as a razor blade – just like the chakra-nature theory book I had been reading the other night said – but a scream cut through the air.

            Our eyes met and we simply started running deeper into the forest behind the Academy, the one usually used for survival training.

            “You can’t even recognize a Kawarimi no Jutsu? You’re still just a kid,” someone mocked. I frowned, trying to put a face to it, but it didn’t sound like any of my classmates or Minato’s group of friends.

            We were jumping from tree branch to tree branch, which I used as an opportunity to train my chakra control. Technically speaking, I shouldn’t know the three basic jutsus and tree walking, but having a super intelligent older brother kind of helped.

            Minato stopped, looking down with a glare. I was so startled by his more-often-than-not kind face distorting into discontentment that I almost fell off the tree had it not been for his arm around my waist.

            “Hair like this is ugly!” The voice kept on scoffing.

            I glanced at the scene happening behind us, crouching down on the branch much like a cat would. There was a kid that I recognized from Minato’s class and an older one that looked like him – probably brothers, then. What caught me by surprise was the third person, though.

            Uzumaki Kushina had the fiercest red hair I’d ever seen. Her eyes were narrowed in annoyance, a steely gray that could melt anything with its intensity. She was as old as Minato, I knew, but had more baby-fat than him or his friends, making her face really round.

            Her hair – so long and so red – was caught in tight grip by the older kid, a Genin by his headband. It was such an amazing color that I immediately understood why Minato fell in love with it. I had never cut my hair before out of vanity as it was now reaching almost the middle on my back in gentle waves and curls, but it couldn’t compare to Kushina’s red locks.

            The younger kid snickered, “Serves you right!”

            To my complete surprise, the steel-gray eyes crumbled seconds before closing and the redhead started crying out of sheer frustration. Minato tensed beside me.

            “I… I don’t like my hair either!” She shouted back.

            Kushina struggled against the hand holding her hair, the locks stretching until breaking point, completely coming off her head. I winced – it must hurt a lot. The older kid himself looked surprised by her tenacity, which made it much easier for her to turn around and deliver a kick to his face, followed by a punch.

            “But,” she continued as if nothing had happened, punctuating each word with a punch to the face. “Even with hair like this, I’m still me!”

            It was a feeling I could somewhat comprehend. Most people confused me with a girl before discovering, one way or another, that I was a boy. It left a vague feeling of annoyance that I usually shrugged off, however, since long hair was a choice of mine.

            “Outsider,” the Genin retorted, no longer sounding arrogant. As he threw strands of crimson hair at Kushina’s face, I noticed how trembling his voice sounded. Her face fell. “As if an outsider can become the Hokage.”

            As the brother walked away, Kushina finally appeared to notice our presence over her head. She looked up, observing me and Minato on the tree, and her face twisted to an expression of pure fury and self-hatred.

            “You’re not going to help me because I’m outsider?” She screamed at us.

            Actually, I had been too shocked by her presence to help her – but it wasn’t as if I could answer that. Either way, she had taken care of it well enough by herself.

            “I–“ My older brother started saying, being cut off.

            “I bet you agree with them too!”

            _Hey, hey_ , I thought, a little irritated at her behavior. Minato was the nicest person you could find and he treated everyone fairly. No matter how bullied she was, Kushina shouldn’t talk to my brother like that.

            I wasn’t irritated enough to start an argument with a nine-year-old girl, though, so I simply watched as she ran off. Standing up, I turned to Minato.

            “Do you know her, Onii-chan?”

            He nodded, still looking at the direction she had run to.

            “She’s in my class. Came from Uzushiogakure, apparently,” he said softly.

            I winced. I had forgotten this village’s fate until now. The Second World Ninja War had ended with the destruction of Uzushio and the scattering of the Uzumaki clan a couple of years back. I was surprised that Kushsina only came to Konoha now, what with the happenings and all.

            “Let’s go back home – Mom is probably worried with our tardiness,” Minato said, suddenly. He tried not to look disheartened, jumping down to the ground with a cheerful wave.

            I jumped right after, already lost in thought. Even though my first meeting with Kushina hadn’t been exactly pleasant, her face reminded me of one thing: seals.

            Minato would lose his life in the future due to the Shiki Fūjin, a seal with enough force to hold back a demon. How could I prevent that? How could I prevent Kyūbi escaping, in first place?

            It seemed that a trip to the library was in order. I had a lot to learn about Fūinjutsu in the next years if I wanted to help my brother at all.

* * *

 

            “What’s with the long face, shorty?” Tsume asked a few days later, not pausing his chewing on pork buns. Mikoto’s face showed her discomfort at this.

            I huffed, “I’m not _shorty_. I’m younger, it’s different.”

            Kihito snorted and Ren nagging Chitarō about eating instead of sleeping – _“for once, Chita!” –_ was just background music.

            “Sure, because being one meter tall is the new tall,” he replied in Tsume’s place. Together they formed a very mean duo. If I didn’t know about Konohamaru or Kiba, I’d say they were perfect for each other. Thinking well about it, it could end up not being a good idea, what with their personalities matching too much in bull-headiness.

            “I’m not one meter tall,” was my response and it was true. I was five centimeters taller than that, thank you very much.

            The Sarutobi boy smiled at me almost indulgently, which made my eyes narrow. If only I had Minato’s worst glare down pat.

            “What’s the cause of your daydreams, though, Kumi-chan?” Ren finally stopped harping Chitarō and sat down. I heard something that sounded suspiciously like _‘Finally’_ from the Nara boy.

            “Is Minato-san being too hard on you?” Mikoto questioned with concern. As all my friends knew about my new regimen, I wasn’t surprised at Minato’s sudden involvement.

            I shook my head, the golden curls for once not flying around as I had let a very bored Kihito discover how to make ponytails during class.

            “I started searching for a new Taijutsu style, but it’s harder than I thought,” I admitted my problem. _And I need a mastery of Fūinjutsu in less than two decades,_ I added inwardly. That would be the hardest part of all this mess.

            Even Chitarō stopped sleeping to throw me a sympathetic glance. Since they were all clan kids, they didn’t need to find their own style of fighting and were even already learning their respective clan’s katas.

            “Would you like help?” Mikoto offered with a sweet smile. I smiled back at her, grateful for her kindness. She was the only Uchiha I had ever seen smiling around Konoha, but then again, I didn’t see them much.

            “Why are you searching for one so early, either way?” Tsume was curious. Her recently-given puppy, Kuromaru, whined in hunger beside her. Tsume’s ninken companion looked more like a wolf pup than a dog one, but behaved better than most humans I had known in my past life.

            I picked a rice ball from my bento before answering, “Well, you have seen how badly most of my spars go, so…”

            Kihito poked my cheek with his chopsticks, exasperated.

            “What are you talking about, flea?” Shorty and flea were his and Tsume’s favorite nicknames for me. Right behind ducky. “You win a lot.”

            I clicked my tongue against my teeth, annoyed at myself rather than Kihito’s comment.

            “Only against people who don’t matter, that’s when I win,” I replied, looking away. I was unusually talkative today – must be the stress of my situation catching up to me.

            Chitarō patted my head, “You’re a lot smaller than most of us, Kumi, nobody expects you to win all the time.”

            I crossed my arms, “Even so. What if I still am smaller than most of others in the future? I should win, short or not.”

            “So you _do_ admit you’re short!” Tsume said, triumphantly. Ren shot her a look that clearly said _Not right now_.

            Mikoto offered me a cinnamon roll in sympathy, but not even the treat cheered me up.

            “You’re smart, Kumi-chan,” Ren said friendly, his grin showing its first sign of life. “Actually, you’re smarter than Thing One and Thing Two here, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

            “Hey!” Tsume and Kihito growled, offended. It was funny, because both of them knew exactly who Thing One and Two was without doubt.

            I smiled at my lunchbox, grateful for my friends’ presence.

* * *

 

            “Tadaima,” I called as soon as I entered home. Mom shouted an _“Okaeri!”_ from the kitchen from the sound of it.

            Minato was nowhere to be seen – probably was spending time with Akimichi Chōza and Aburame Shibi, as the trio had been working on a project. Unconcerned, I entered the kitchen only to sniff the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies. My mouth instantly watered.

            “Are you baking, Mom?” I tilted my head sideways, trying to see around her body. Standing on my tiptoes, I tried to look over the counter without grabbing my usual stepping stool.

            She glanced down at me, smiling with eyes so similar to mine. Cleaning her hand on her apron, her fingers went through the waves in my hair affectionately.

            “Who tied up your hair, sweetie?” Mom asked, playing with the high ponytail being held by a rubber band.

            “First Kihito, when he was bored, but Mikoto redid it later, saying it was horrible,” I answered with honesty.

            She laughed and it was a beautiful sound, as delightful as the smell of her cookies.

            “Go take a bath before training today,” she advised. “It’s much too hot to begin exercising without getting refreshed first.”

            I nodded, running off to do what she told me. Ever since Dad died a couple of years ago, I had tried to be as obedient and helpful as possible. I knew how much his death had affected her, even she didn’t show it most of the time.

            Entering the bathroom, though, I realized that there was no towel in sight or in the cabinet. I went back to the kitchen, confused.

            “Mom, where are the tow– Mom? Mom!” I cut myself in the middle of the question, seeing her body lying on the floor.

            My knees hit the ground with enough force to bruise in my desperation, but I didn’t care. I had learnt first aid during my first year in the Academy and, for all my hard-earned intelligent, I couldn’t concentrate on what were the steps of it. I simply sat on my heels, shaking my Mom’s shoulder like the lost child I felt.

            “Mom?” I called, hoping, praying for an answer. It was a prank, even if my Mom never pranked anyone in this house before. “Mommy?”

            Please. Not you too. _Not you._

            “Minato!” I called, but of course there was no reply. My older, much smarter brother wasn’t home.

            Tears gathered in my eyes and I tried to remember what I should do, tried to think about what would help in this situation. No matter which ninja training I received, there was no way my body could pick up a person half a meter taller and lots of kilos heavier than me.

            “Mommy,” I murmured, lowering the upper part of my body and letting my cheek rest against her forehead. She was burning, but it didn’t bother me. Why hadn’t she said anything? Why had she just smiled at me as if nothing was wrong?

            I put her head in my lap, caressing her silk strands of yellow-blond hair and trying not to let my tears hit her pretty face.

            Please, wake up.

            Please.

            “Tadaima!” Minato’s cheerful voice called from the door, much earlier than I expected.

            That’s when I started sobbing.


	5. The Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi remembers life lessons from his past.

            Cancer.

            For all its absolute madness and incredible possibilities, this world was flawed.

            I must say – there is something impressive in the way that your heart keeps beating inside your chest, strong, unwilling to give up, even after your mind has just stopped.

            It wasn’t like when Dad died, a few months short of it having happened three years ago. My tears didn’t dry up as if shocked into silence this time. As soon as I heard the medic’s words, I started sobbing. I had been sobbing earlier too.

            I felt Minato’s hand encircling my head, pulling me into his arms. His chest was trembling, but I didn’t try to look at his face. If I saw his expression, I’d be too scared to move on. I needed someone strong in my life, even if it seemed selfish of me to keep believing him to be invincible.

            He was muttering something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear it – didn’t want to hear it.

            I should try not to be bitter about this kind of situation. Really, it would make things a lot easier if my heart didn’t squeeze itself to death every time this sour lump took place in my throat.

            “Kumi,” Minato murmured. He kept repeating my name over and over again, I noticed.

            Why did Mother die? Why did Dad die? Why did Mom… She couldn’t be sick. Not _this_ sick. Were all my mother figures destined to die from cancer? Would my next mother, in my possible next life, die of it too?

            The world is an unfair place.

            The realization hit me so suddenly that my knees gave out and I’d be on the ground had it not been for my brother’s arms.

            I had known everything about unfairness in my last lifetime. The past “ _me”_ didn’t suffer from hunger, diseases or cold like many others had. It was psychological madness, suffocating loneliness.

            But I had allowed myself to soften – to forget about hardships. I had perceived this world as a big opportunity, instead of seeing it for what it truly was: real life. In real life, you don’t always have a happy ending or inspiring beginnings. There were struggles, and pain, and hurt.

            Why had I forgotten this?

* * *

 

            “What are you doing, Mom?” I asked the weak woman lying on the bed.

            It was hard to believe that only two weeks had passed since I found her unconscious in the kitchen. She had been smiling that day, blond hair flowing around her face and lips curving into lines of perfect happiness.

            She looked up from the piece of paper she had been writing over her food tray. I couldn’t help but notice her beautiful was her smile, despite the bags under her eyes and unnatural paleness of her skin.  I had overheard the doctor and Minato’s conversation a few days earlier. Apparently, ninjas were much less inclined to develop cancer or any fatal diseases that somehow didn’t involve chakra. Shinobi, through their training of said energy, were made of much sturdier material.

            _If only Mom was a ninja._

            “I’m doing something meant to you and Minato,” Mom whispered, as if it was a secret.

            Her words startled me, though.

            “I-It’s not a will, is it?!”

            Her chiming bells laugh calmed my beating heart.

            “Of course not, sweetie,” she assured me. “I’m planning a picnic to celebrate when I get better, so this is my list of food.”

            I put my hand over her leg as, since I was sitting on the end of her bed, it was closer to me than her hand.

            “Can I see what you wrote? I’ll buy it.”

            “Nope,” was her cheerful response. “I want it to be a surprise. Don’t tell Minato.”

            If her smile faltered for a moment, I pretended not to notice. I liked the picnic story too.

* * *

 

            I ducked the spinning kick that Kihito directed at my head. My body was on autopilot, the regimen Minato had put together for me paying off. I put my hand on the ground before even realizing I’d done so and let my feet rotate in the air, until they connected with the Sarutobi’s stomach. It was like dancing.

            “That was a good one, Kumi-chan!” Ren congratulated me on my rare victory against Kihito. “Did you think it yourself?”

            I nodded, not very enthusiastic about the whole thing. I had been searching for a Taijutsu stance desperately, wanting to distract my head from depressing thoughts. Though I had yet to tell anyone, I thought my decision had come to an end already.

            I snapped out of my musings when a hand fell over my head – not hitting it or patting it, just resting. My eyes followed the arm and I saw Chitarō’s face inches over mine.

            “Huh?”

            “We took you outside to relax a little, Kumi,” he commented. I was just grateful that he hadn’t said something silly like _try to have some fun._ I didn’t feel like laughing.

            “Sorry, it’s just…” I stopped. I couldn’t say it and Chitarō knew what I was talking about anyway.

            Minato had forced me to get out of the hospital this weekend. The only hours I didn’t spend there were during school hours and sleeping hours. He worried about my health if I stayed an entire night in the hospital, so he also made me go to the Nara’s residence with Chitarō and Shikaku’s invitation. Very reluctantly, I made my way to one of my best friend’s house every day, wondering if Mom would still be there when I visited her before the Academy started.

            I was juggling training, homework, friends and hospital visits every day. My grades were slipping and I got tired easily. I could tell that my brother and friends were worried about me, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop pondering over Mom’s situation.

            The medic had given her four more months with treatment, which cut very close to Minato’s graduation. I told him that I couldn’t simply stay such a long time at the Nara’s residence and would go back home soon. Most of the time, he ignored my logic.

            Tsume’s companion, Kuromaru, started barking.

            “Eh, what is it, Kuromaru?” Said owner asked confusedly, sniffing the air to identify the supposed threat.

            As we were in the park near my house, we weren’t overly worried about who                                                                                                                   was approaching our not-so-visible hiding spot. However, Ren still took one step closer to Mikoto and Chitarō’s hand fell from my head to my shoulder. Kihito tensed.

            “Kumi-chan!” A voice called, startling us out of our silence. “Kumi-chan!”

            I recognized Shiranui Airi’s slightly high-pitched voice. She was my neighbor and had been so since I was a baby. Despite having a toddler at home and a husband who constantly went on missions, she still took her time to cook for us dinner and leave it at the hospital for me and Minato.

            “Airi-oba-san?” I called back, unsure at her tone. She sounded somewhat desperate.

            I ran out of our secluded spot, finding her near the swings. When I was younger, I hadn’t connected her brown hair and surname with Shinarui Genma, the future senbon-user Tokubetsu Jōnin, but now that the kid was born, it was easy to see their similarity.

            “Kumi-chan,” she replied, relieved, when her eyes encountered mine. Her much bigger hand took mine and I frowned when her trembling fingers curled around my wrist. “Minato-kun asked to find you – your mother’s condition has worsened.”

            My heart skipped a beat and I wondered how many times it could do that in such a short span of time before it stopped indefinitely.

            “Wha–“

I stopped asking, because my rapidly growing tears were choking me.

            My friends finally appeared, out of breath. Funny. I hadn’t noticed how far away the swings were from our spot. I was panting too, but not for the same reason.

            Ren took my other hand, getting my attention. I guess I was spacing out. Or fainting. The edges of my vision were darkening.

            “Kumi-chan,” he urged. “Move.”

            I thanked Airi-oba-san, but I didn’t sound grateful. She probably didn’t mind – her ‘You’re welcome’ didn’t sound as cheerful as usual too.

* * *

 

            I was usually faster than my friends, even with less stamina. This time, however, they stayed in front of me all the way to the hospital and were gasping for air for much longer than I was.

            The aisles of the hospital were light and clear, even though my mind was drowning in bad thoughts. The birds were chirping outside and it seemed unfair that today was such a sunny day.

            Nobody tried to stop us – be it because of our desperate expression, be it because nobody had the time before we passed the nurses too fast for them to catch us. I only stopped when room 202 came into view.

            The door was closed.

            Minato was sitting on a chair in the corridor, his head resting on his hands. I stopped in my tracks and my pulse was the only sound roaring in my ears. I was used to seeing my brother composed – he was hard to anger and easy to befriend. Sitting there – with his heels barely touching the ground, his shoulders hunched in weariness – I was reminded of how young he really was.

            The scene gave me a feeling of numbness – not peace, for I wasn’t feeling relieved. I went closer to him, noticing how I was practically the same height as his sitting form. Minato looked up and I frowned at his eyes. They were softening and hardening at the same time, as if trying to be stronger at my sudden appearance.

            “Onii-chan,” I greeted and, though it sounded empty, I was relieved it also sounded calm.

            His arms went around my waist, clutching me closer. A few minutes earlier, had I not seen his tired form, I’d say he did this because he wanted to assure me that everything would be okay. Now I knew he did that because he wanted to calm himself.

            “Mii-chan,” he replied, trying to smile.

            I looked over my shoulders, searching for my friends, but they had given us privacy, disappearing into other corridors. Minato followed my glance.

            “Did you come with someone?”

            I nodded, “Un. But they must have gone home already,” was my answer. I wasn’t saying the truth. Minato knew I wasn’t saying the truth. But we didn’t call out on my lie. It was easier to think that my group of friends weren’t waiting somewhere in the hospital, worried about our situation. It was easier to think we didn’t have a situation at all.

            Door 202 glared at us from the other side of the aisle.

            “Airi-oba-san said you were searching for me,” I said after a few minutes of silence. “She said Mom’s condition…”

            I stopped. Not only because I couldn’t say it, but also because Minato’s shoulders started shaking. His eyes found mine and I was unsurprised at the gleaming blue orbs I found. Technically speaking, my mentality was that of a 23-year-old man. Which meant that I should be able to handle some hours of waiting for the – bad or good – news. Observing Minato’s nine-year-old eyes was the most nerve-wrecking experience since I was born in this world.

            “Yeah,” my older brother – my always strong and kind older brother – managed to choke out. He gathered me up in his arms, sitting me on his lap and burying his face in my hair. “Yeah.”

            If his eyes were red and my hair was wet ten minutes later, we didn’t comment on it.

* * *

 

            I was packing my thing back into my bag when Chitarō’s father stopped on the doorway. Like any Nara, his hair was tied in ponytail and his dark eyes were sharp. Shikaku’s face was lot like his father, but Chitarō’s had more traces of their mother Suzume, including her freckles.

            “Going back home, Kumi-kun?” Nara Shikato questioned. He was the only one who called me _–kun_.

            I nodded and turned in his direction to bow a little, “Yes, sir. Thank you for letting me stay here for such a long time.”

            He dismissed my formality with a wave of his hand, as always. The Naras weren’t much into this kind of thing, after all.

            “Feel welcome to come back any time,” he said and went back into doing whatever he was. He didn’t ask why I was going back home already. I found out that it was better this way.

            Chitarō appeared into the room, eyeing the disappearing form of his father.

            “Did he say anything?” He asked, handing me my clean pile of clothes.

            I shook my head, deciding to shorten our conversation, “No, he just said goodbye.”

            Chitarō knew I wasn’t saying everything, but he didn’t press it. On our way to the front door, we found Shikaku sitting in front of a shogi board. He was playing alone, obviously creating new strategies for a different situation.

            “Oh?” He eyed my bag. “Going home already, Kumi?”

            Shikaku, like his brother, didn’t bother adding a suffix to my name, saying it was troublesome, not to mention confusing. In his words, people calling me _–chan_ would make others think I was a girl, which was trued enough with my looks.

            When I asked him which difference it made if people thought I was a girl or not, he only told that, “I think you’d like to be recognized by what you are.”

            I nodded at his question.

            “I can’t stay here forever,” I answered softly.

            He observed my face for a few seconds, not doubt taking into account my too-bright eyes and my tense lips, before acquiescing.

            “Tell Minato that I’ll see him tomorrow at the usual place, yes?” He asked, not bothering on playing polite. Frankly speaking, after weeks of people walking on eggshells around me, straightforward honesty was very welcomed.

            “Will do,” I replied, waving goodbye.

           Chitarō accompanied me to the front door and I turned around to thank him for letting me stay here for such a long time. How long had it been since I slept at home? Three weeks? A month? A little more? I had been uncertain about disturbing the Nara household for so long, but Suzume-san was more than happy to meet a friend of her son and Shikato-san didn’t seem to mind the new guest.

           “You know you can come back here if anything happens, right?” He asked before I could open my mouth. At my silence, he sighed. “I’m serious, Kumi. I know you – you’re the type to suffer on your own.”

           I looked away at this. Chitarō rested his hand over my head as usual.

           “Don’t try to do everything alone. It’s troublesome, not to mention trying. And Ren will just hunt you down until you confess all your fears, anyway,” he smirked, dispersing the tension.

            Life was a funny thing. Here I was, receiving a talk-down from an eight-year-old and feeling relieved from it.

             “Thank you, Chita,” I said. _Really._

* * *

 

           My Mom was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.

           I lived two lifetimes, one shorter than the other, but never found a woman as beautiful as my Mom was. No blond managed to reach her locks, because no blond managed to have sun, gold and yellow in their hair. And nobody had eyes like hers, because nobody’s eyes could reflect all the lights like hers.

           She was amazing.

           Her laugh was like chiming bells and her skin was like sweet milk. I remember her kindness and the smell of her cookies. I remember the days she’d sit down and read for me and my brother, even when she was worried about Dad or had worked all day long.

           The room would light up when she entered it, just by walking in.

           Her hugs were the best.

           Differently from my first Mother, I could remember her face with glaring clarity. I could remember her smell of chamomile and her small hand caressing my hair and her voice whispering in my ear that everything would turn out okay.

           When I came into this world, I had thought that – somehow – I’d have all the time in the world with my new mother. She went from my new Mother to Mother and to Mom faster than it should have been possible. And, then, she went to the hospital.

           Mom died when I was seven. The same age as my first Mother. I tried not to wonder over the irony of this statement, if only not to feel bitter about it.

            My memories and letters were the only thing I had left of her now. Photos could preserve moments, but never her smell, her laugh or her hugs. Minato assured me that I’d never forget any of this, but I wasn’t so sure. I had forgotten my first Mother as well.

            Mom had written letters her entire time at the hospital. Each letter had a date or an occasion to be opened, such as “First Kiss” or “Seventeenth Birthday”. I was tempted to open them all and just read, but my love for her prevented me from doing so. Minato had also received a box with letters from the nurse taking care of my Mom, but I never asked him about his. They were his to read and nurture.

            In a way, life went on after Mom died. Minato graduated and we moved to a smaller apartment after promising Airi-oba-san that, yes, we would visit her every week. I kept on going to the Academy and spending time with my friends.

            It’s funny, though – I never managed to bake cookies as well as Mom.

* * *

 

_To my special child,_

_I love you._

_I didn’t know how to start this, since it means that I’m gone, but I just wanted to assure you – I love you. You and your brother were my proudest achievement and I know your Dad thought so too._

_I wrote all those letters for you as a way of keeping up with your accomplishments despite not being physically present. Know, however, that I’ll watch over you and Minato no matter where you go or what you do. You can read all the letters in a go if you want to. I promise I won’t be mad if you can’t wait in your grief, though I must say that there is one in the pile meant for when you are at your lowest._

_I want you know that we won’t be able to meet eye to eye anymore, but always heart to heart. So, please, be strong. Grandma died when I was young too and she used to tell me that all things are difficult before they are easy. You’ll find your way, even if everything seems hopeless now._

_Take care of your brother. He doesn’t know when to stop and worries too much about being the perfect son. Remind him that it’s okay to err sometimes and that you’ll always be there for him._

_Take care of yourself. I named you Kumi not only because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid my eyes on, but also because you’re the owner of a very beautiful soul. I know you’ll do the right thing._

_When I was pregnant with you, I was always worried about my ability to love. I had your Dad and your brother in life already and didn’t know if I’d be able to love another being as much as I loved them already. When I saw you for the first time, I knew that my entire universe had shifted, because another incredible being belonged with me._

_That’s why, Kumi, I want you to be yourself. You’re amazing just the way you are, no matter what others think or tell you. No matter what happens._

_I’m proud of you._

_I love you, sweetheart._

_From your mother, with love,_

_Namikaze Torii._


	6. The Third Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi realizes that he kind of has to pay attention to the timeline. Probably.

The first time I met Minato’s team was five weeks after he became a Genin. In a way, I had known who his teammates were, since being in the same Academy kind of made it obvious that at one point I’ve glanced at them. Not to mention their clan status. Or my previous life knowledge. Really.

            It was Saturday, but ninjas didn’t have a day off unless their squad leader or teacher said so. If _you_ were a squad leader, well, lucky you. Minato had gone off earlier than usual, mumbling sleepily – who knew that genius Namikaze Minato was terrible in the mornings? – about training.

            Being horrible in the mornings also meant that Minato naturally forgot his bento. I was tempted to leave it at that as lesson, but my fondness of him won in the end. My brother was my last living family, which made us closer than ever. Mom’s death last November still clouded over us as a silent reminder, even though it was already May.

            Sighing in exasperation at my brother forgetfulness, I put on my usual clothes – a pair of black pants, a short-sleeve dark green hoodie and fingerless gloves – and went to training ground 12.

            My first experience with Team 7 – more commonly known as Team Jiraiya – can be described as it follows.

            There was a huge man sitting on a training log and laughing boisterously. There was my brother facing-palming in the sidelines. And, then, there were a long-haired kid and a permanently-glaring kid brawling.

            That’s right – _brawling_. Because rolling on the ground and punching each other’s face off couldn’t be called sparing.

            Jiraiya was _tall_. I had seen tall people before, of course, but not when I was about 120cm. His hair was so white that you could write him off as old at first glance, but his face was, except for laughing lines, free of wrinkles. Despite his easy smile, however, he was the first to notice me standing there and observe me with a cautious glance, never dismissing me as a potential threat just because I was a child.

            That was kind of flattering. And scaring too, since I doubt I’d ever be able to win against someone like freaking Jiraiya.

            Minato was the second to see me there, which was somewhat surprising actually. He possessed something graciously nicknamed “Little Brother Radar”. Chōza had been the one to name it after seeing firsthand how overprotective my older brother could get. Long story.

            “Mii-chan?” He called, confused. It lasted a second, before he grinned widely. “Did you miss Onii-chan? That’s why you came here?”

            I looked away, embarrassed. _Minato, you’re just… Oh, boy._

            “You forgot your lunch,” I stated. And, just for the heck of it, added, “Baka Aniki.”

            He put on his _the moment Minato loses all his pride and acts like a mother-hen_ face.

            “No, Mii-chan, you can’t call me Aniki,” Minato complained childishly. It was obviously a new side of him to his team, for they were exchanging glances behind my brother’s back.

            Jiraiya laughed and it felt as if the ground could tremble from it.

            “The Blond Brat has an even younger Blond Brat at home. How unexpected!”

            “Tch, what a shitty spy master you are if you don’t even know that about your student,” mocked the permanently-glaring kid, also known as Uchiha Fugaku.

            The Uchiha wasn’t as tall as my brother – making it kind of clear why Itachi wasn’t the tallest guy in the anime in the future with him and Mikoto as parents – but his arms were more toned than his teammates’. His hair was more of a dark brown than an onyx-shade, but his eyes were as black and endless as Mikoto’s.

            “Shut up, Bratty Brat!” Jiraiya said, karate-chopping Fugaku’s head. The Uchiha nursed it with a muttered swear so foul it would make a sailor blush. Wow. That certainly wasn’t what I had expected from the future Head of the Uchiha Clan.

            “You’re terrible with nicknames too, Shitty-sensei,” the Uchiha countered.

            The long-haired kid clicked his tongue, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

            He was obviously a Hyūga with his pupil-less lavender eyes and light-colored clothes. His mid-length brown hair held in a low-ponytail made his face seem older and more rigid than it should for a kid his age. Everybody in the Hyūga clan looked alike, making it hard to identify who he was just by observing, but as Minato had been his classmate for years and teammates for weeks, I already knew that this one was Hyūga Hizashi.

            “Should’ve thought of that before, Old Brat,” Jiraiya murmured, crossing his arms.

            Minato finally decided to stop comically crying over the word Aniki. He gave me a hug in thanks for bringing his food and, putting his hands on my shoulders, pushed me to his team’s general direction.

            “Guys, this is my cute little brother Namikaze Kumi,” he said, acting like a proud mama bear. “Mii-chan, these are Jiraiya-sensei, Uchiha Fugaku and Hyūga Hizashi.”

            Politely bowing, I said, “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for taking good care of my brother.”

            “Hah, I was hoping for an attitude after your first response to Blond Brat, but shouldn’t have expected anything other than this with someone as Blondie here as your brother,” Jiraiya commented, sounding disappointed.

            “Uh… Sorry?”

            _I suppose_.

            He dismissed it a wave of his hand. I noticed how Fugaku and Hizashi were too busy glaring at each other to care about being polite and replying.

            “Will they be okay?” I questioned my brother, indicating the almost-brawling-once-again pair with my chin. As my hair was reaching just under my waist now, it was just heavy to fly everywhere when I jutted my chin out like I usually did.

            Minato smiled, patting my head comfortingly.

            “Nah, they’ll be fine. They do this all the time, after all. It’s their way of saying _I care about you_ , you know.”

            “It’s not!” Was the twin reply. Well, obviously not busy enough glaring at each other, simply impolite enough to care about my presence and dignify it with a response. How flattering.

            Feeling sorry for my brother, I put my hand on his upper arm and he looked down at me distractedly.

            “Mii-chan, what is it?” He asked, confused with my gesture.

            “Onii-chan,” I said with all sincerity I could gather. “Good luck.”

            “What?”

* * *

 

            The third year in the Academy was much less boring than the first two. There was much less focus in the theoretical part with the whole morning being used to train the body instead of the mind.

            As we spent the entirety of the second year – supposedly – learning how to throw shuriken and kunai, it wouldn’t make sense to focus on that exercise this year. The same could be said to endurance training, since it was expected of us to follow it ourselves.

            Saki-sensei spent the two first months teaching us how to make traps and avoid them instead. I discovered that while Mikoto was absolutely amazing at this – in fact, the best of our class – I was _absolutely terrible_.

            Minato had been right when he said that I’d prefer Ninjutsu over Genjutsu despite the good grasp I had over my chakra. Last year, as we learnt how to create illusions, it became painfully obvious how unimaginative I could be while practicing the most basic Genjutsu. It had made me somewhat disappointed that, yes, you can read all the books you want in your life and still be as boring as an old geezer.

            I thought I had gotten over my dislike for Genjutsu, but it came back tenfold when I showed myself incapable of planning out-of-the-box traps. I could disarm them well enough – it was even easier with my constantly growing flexibility to bend at weird angles – but _creating them_? Ha.

            Tsume, of course, said it was hilarious that there was finally something I couldn’t do. Apparently, my friends thought I was as prodigy-like as my brother, in spite of the fact that, in my childish mind, no one could be as cool as Minato.

            It was with open arms that June arrived and I entered the classroom, ready to learn something that didn’t include using ninja-wire.

            “’Morning, Kumi,” drawled a sleepy Nara. I smiled at one of my best friends, used to his early mood. Minato was the only person I knew that came close to a Nara at eight o’clock.

            “Good morning, Chita,” I replied, taking my usual seat beside him. It was one of the first things I learnt during my first year in the Academy: if you want to have a peaceful and productive class, do _not_ sit beside Tsume or Ren. The former would poke you to death (not to mention Kuromaru – enough said), the later would talk your ear off. It was easier to tolerate Chitarō’s light snores, Mikoto’s constantly-writing pen or Kihito’s tendency to play with my hair.

            My attention was directed toward the door sliding open. I wasn’t surprised to see Mikoto entering the room, as she was the most responsible of us. One time, I asked Chitarō why he arrived so early if he wanted to sleep, but his answer was the most Nara-like reply ever, “ _Well, if I get up late, I’ll have to run, while if I get up ahead of time, I’ll be able to choose where to sleep in class._ ” The only thing missing was a _troublesome_ murmured at the end, followed by a sigh.

            “Hello,” Mikoto greeted us, waving. Graceful as ever – as expected from the daughter of the Clan Head – she sat down.

            Seeing that Chitarō was already snoring, I replied for both of us, “’Morning, Mi-chan.” Taking a good look at her expression, I added, “Why the long face?”

            It was easy to read her wide black eyes, even if Uchiha were recognized by their unfailing poker face. Mikoto, however, with her white shirt and dark-purple short shorts, wasn’t your usual Uchiha. She was a walking contradiction. Her high-collared shirt with a fan on the back and pitch-black hair and eyes made it to believe her heritage; her inborn kindness and quiet support did not.

            “My little brother starts the Academy today,” she revealed after a few seconds.

            I nodded sympathetically. I knew that Mikoto loved her brother from the bottom of her heart and worried about him a lot. I had only gone to the Uchiha district once and it was to ask Mikoto if she wanted to sleepover at Tsume’s house with the rest of us. It had been a uncomfortable situation – walking through the clan’s streets and knocking at the Clan Head’s house, I mean. All that meant I only had heard of Uchiha Kizoku, but it was enough to know that he and Mikoto were as different as day and night.

            “Why only now, though?” I wondered out loud before I could stop myself. It wasn’t really my business to know.

            Mikoto smiled softly at me, not mad at my curiosity.

            “Otou-sama,” she was always respectful toward her father, “was training Kizoku until now – he didn’t want to stop their schedule just because classes had started.”

            She paused.

            “And the Hokage allowed him to start later,” Mikoto admitted, as if it was an embarrassing fact. She didn’t like favoritism and it was obvious to me what the Hokage’s decision looked like. I couldn’t say much, though, since he had let me start later too.

            Slightly tilting my head sideways to peek at her downcast eyes, I smiled. Mikoto twisted her lips up in response, if only to assure me that she was okay.

           Sometimes, it was simple to forget how pressured my best female friend was. She was only ten, but it was expected of her to marry a strong Uchiha and produce more Uchiha babies – in fact, a marriage contract had been signed ever since she was born, though the husband was to remain anonymous until she reached Chūnin rank.

           (Not that I didn’t know who was the mysterious guy, anyway.)

           Her father favored her younger brother, paying exclusive attention to his heir and consequently neglecting his oldest daughter. At first glance, it seemed that my friend dealt with this situation well enough, but with a mother that was the perfect housewife, a strict father that couldn’t care less about her ninja career and a brother that was succumbing under all his future responsibilities – well, Mikoto needed all the support she could get. Even if it was from a broken twenty-four-turned-eight year old like me.

           Truthfully speaking, my group of friends could be considered a group of misfits. At first glance, we all seemed content with our lives, but under all that bubbled a desire to prove ourselves to everyone else.

           There was me, a guy who didn’t stay dead and had to live tormented with the memories of my terrible first life and the pressure of knowing the happenings of my second one. There was Mikoto, an Uchiha destined to be nothing more than a dutiful housewife who wanted to prove more than anything that she could be a competent ninja in her own way. There was Tsume, the rightfully Clan Heir of the Inuzuka that was always met with looks of disdain from the canine family for being a woman. There was Kihito, the son of the Sandaime who didn’t follow his father’s ideal word for word. There was Ren, the Yamanaka that managed to scare off civilian kids for the sole reason of descending from a mind-walker clan. And there was Chitarō, always in the shadow of his immensely intelligent brother.

           When put like that, it wasn’t surprising we managed to be friends in spite of our vastly different personalities. Every one of us worked hard at getting stronger for our own reasons. Even my formerly shy nature had changed to match my friends’ determined stubbornness during those years we spent together.

           I had decided that if a bunch of nine-year-old kids could be so damn headstrong about their goals even against all odds – well, so could I.

* * *

 

            As the months passed, the focus of this year in the Academy became clear. The first one was focused on the theories – Math, Geography, History, Chakra Pathways and its Uses, First-Aid – on the things that would help us survive on the field. The second one focused on the basics - how to handle the most common weapons, the beginner’s katas, how to dispel and create illusions, Kawarimi and a few tricks with chakra.

            The third year, however, focused on Infiltration, Intelligence and how to survive on enemy’s lands. They taught us how to handle torture with psychological exercises and how to lie with a straight face. More often than not, you would find a third-year student practicing stealth instead of chakra control. Henge no Jutsu was the Academy-three – Kawarimi, Henge, Bunshin – passed down this year, even though Minato had already taken the time to teach me the hand-seals.

            Two students from civilian families gave up sometime during July and one was whisked away to the T&I when it became clear his potential of becoming an interrogator. Saki-sensei told us that it wasn’t unusual – few of us would graduate to become a Genin squad under a Jōnin-sensei. Apparently, most of the students went to different departments, be it medic-nin, decoder, Genin Corps and many, many others. I hadn’t realized there were so many possibilities, though it should’ve been obvious from the start that there wouldn’t be enough Jōnin to spend time teaching us all.

            All in all, the third year could be a great year or terrible year depending on your abilities. Mikoto, for example, flourished – she was exceptional at making traps and devising infiltration plans. Ren, like a true Yamanaka, was great at mind games and could cast Genjutsu like no other.

          Kihito and Tsume, however, were out of their elements. The former excelled in fighting with his bō-staff and recently-taught Fire Jutsus, but was terrible with simulations that involved discreet assassination, such as poisons or psychological torture. The later was simply too loud with her dog partner and wasn’t suited to infiltration either with her incredible tracker skills.

           Chitarō – true to his Nara nature – did what was expected of him. He had started learning his clan techniques with Shikato-san and had a surprising aptitude with the practice swords. And, even though he said all the time that his brother was ten times more intelligent than him, we could always count on his brain. Writing codes became a hobby of his.

          I did well enough – even with the traps tragedy at the beginning of the school year. Torture and Intelligence didn’t catch my attention at all, but Assassination seemed cool. It was a mix of Infiltration and a frontal line fighter, which suited my abilities just fine. I’d never have the best stamina, but my ability with jutsus was nothing to scoff at.

           The only person who knew the name of my new Taijutsu style was my brother, who helped me when he had time, though I often learnt the katas alone (my ability to read, memorize and learn had to be handy some time, after all). It was called Hayai Tejun, or simply Quickstep. According to the scroll I found in the library, most people chose not to use it despite its effectiveness, because the user had to be small, as in shorter than 165cm. It was a risky move – who knew? I could have a growth spurt – but I ignored it.

           Quickstep was a leg-relying style, which meant that the user had more strength in the lower body than in the upper body. I only used my hands to put them on the ground and spin my legs, kind of like break dancing. In a way, it was a dance – just much more deadly. Pressure points were my new friends and honed reflexes my new abilities.

           Quickstep was wonderful for a previous Taijutsu-failure like me, but wasn’t invincible and was certainly nowhere near mastered. I still lost to Minato every time we sparred against each other and Kihito – the best at hand-to-hand or weapon combat in our group – defeated me eight times out of ten.

          And, finally, I also dedicated this year to learn the basic of sealing. The death of my mother served as an incentive to solving the guarded secrets and mysteries involving Fūinjutsu. There were scrolls in the library, but they were only accessible to Genin and over – which meant that I conveniently used Minato’s pass every time, not only lying to the lady at the desk, but also to my older brother.

           (It made me feel horrible, but, hey, his life was at stake here.)

           I was surprised to discover that sealing interested me very much. I had liked the coding classes almost as much as Chitarō – our friends thought us weird – and loved solving riddles in my last lifetime, which made the complicated art of seals appealing. It was kind of like learning a new language – you started by translating sentences in your head, before deciding somewhere in the middle of it to “Fuck this!” and to treat each word as a thing with individual meaning. Only much harder.

           It’s true that I could have simply told Minato about my desire to learn Fūinjutsu and he’d have supported me in this decision and even, perhaps, found me a teacher. Except I didn’t want to tell him. Sealing was the only thing that I hid from my brother for months and months. I spent hours over ancient scrolls and books, trying to understand what the hell the writer had meant when he said that perpendicular lines could be used in four – _four –_ different ways and spirals were for stability as well as a base.

           Was it irresponsible of me to be self-taught at Fūinjutsu? Absolutely. But with my new found determination to succeed and my love for my brother made me ignore everything else with a single-minded stubbornness.

* * *

 

_Dear Kumi,_

_Happy Birthday! You’re nine today and I couldn’t be any prouder, sweetheart. I bet you’re all grown-up now too. I hope Minato finally learnt how to bake the chocolate cake he used to pester me about and that’s what you’re eating right now. (Don’t forget to eat your vegetables, though.)_

_If I’m calculating it right, you must be almost done with your third year in the Academy, yes? Just one more and you’ll be a Genin. Goodness, how time flies. I remember when you were so tiny-tiny that one hand was enough to lift you up._

_Make sure to take care of yourself, Mii-chan. And don’t let your brother prance around too much – you deserve your fair share of fun._

_Missing you lots,_

_Mommy_

* * *

 

          And so the months passed calmly and quickly. Until Uzumaki Mito-sama’s death was announced with great sorrow by the Sandaime Hokage and my brother didn’t come back one night, two weeks later.

          Uzumaki Kushina had been kidnapped and I had completely forgotten about it.

          Oh, God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh, kinda embarassed to say, but I'm usually inconsistent in regards to posting new chapters. The only reason the they've been coming so fast is 'cause they're already written. I make it up as I go. Oh, well. 
> 
> Hope you liked the story so far, though! I'll try to be a better writer this year.
> 
> (Oh, New Year resolutions...)


	7. The Resentment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi discovers how irrational fear and jealousy can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, thanks for the kudos and comments! They mean a lot :D Don't hesitate to ask any questions, I'll answer as well as I can!

I _was not_ panicking.

            I mean, there was no reason to panic, was there? I knew exactly what happened when Kushina was kidnapped. Despite the fogginess of my first life’s memories, I was aware of what Minato would do to save the red-haired girl. So, no, I wasn’t panicking.

            I was terrified – no matter what I told myself.

            For a moment, I thought it would be easy to accept Minato’s decision to save Kushina. He was destined to be one of the strongest people in this world – surely, it would be simple to understand his actions and wait for his arrival. Nevertheless, it was not. He was my brother and my last living family. I could not help but worry and ponder over the possibilities.

            What if he got hurt? What if the kidnappers were stronger than they were in the anime? What if the kidnappers weren’t even the same ones?

            My heart was beating so hard against my ribcage it might as well have flown away. I was gasping for air – and it sounded silly, because I knew Minato would be okay. I _knew_ Minato would come back later this night and grin widely at me, saying something stupid about training or whatever.

            I got up from the ground, noticing that my knees had given up at the sudden realization of Minato’s disappearing act. Before I even thought about, I was going to the Nara district, Chitarō’s words ringing in head.

            _Don’t try to do everything alone._

* * *

 

            I never reached the Nara district. Actually, I found Jiraiya hastily jumping from roof to roof and the sole reason I noticed the white blur was because Minato had been showing me ways of sensing chakra for the past few weeks. Most of the time, I ignored my new ability, since understanding other people’s layers was more bothersome than not.

            “Jiraya-sensei!” I called, loud enough to be heard in the quiet night. The majority of Konoha was already asleep, as it was too late to be awake. The only sounds around us came from the bars and the only lights came from the street lamps strategically positioned.

            The tallest Sannin stopped on his tracks, peering down at my small form. Rolling my eyes, I escalated the wall and stood on the same rooftop as him.

            “Hm, you already know the tree climbing exercise? I gotta admit it, I’m impressed, Younger Brat,” he commented, grinning wolfishly. I frowned, simply because it was obvious he was hiding something.

            ‘Something’.

            “I’ve known it since I was seven, Jiraiya-sensei,” I told him – not arrogantly, just exasperated. “Have you seen Minato?”

            I could see that he was taken aback by my abruptness and by my use of Minato’s name. I was usually much more quiet and shy, but I _didn’t_ feel quiet and shy right now. Just incredibly worried and a tad annoyed at my brother’s complete disregard of his own safety.

            Jiraiya looked away and I would not have seen it if the moon wasn’t lighting up the scenery around us.

            “Well?”

            “Tsk,” he clicked his tongue, turning his eyes back to me, not exactly disapproving, but certainly not happy. “One of his friends got kidnapped and he went after her.”

            I narrowed my eyes, “Which friend? And who’s the kidnapper?”

            It wasn’t as if I should know this already, after all.

            He sighed, putting his giant hand – it was like a bear paw, seriously – over my head.

            “You shouldn’t trouble yourself over it – your brother will be back by today’s morning,” Jiraiya assured me. For a pervert, he was very good with kids, I must admit.

            Wait. Not that _I_ was kid.

            “I’m always worried,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and probably utterly failing at looking nonchalant and/or intimidating. “Over a lot of things, for many reasons.”

            The Toad Sannin laughed and it felt as if the entire rooftop was shaking. Then, suddenly, he stopped. His eyes shone with curiosity.

            “Say, kid, how did you see me running over here? It’s too dark and I was racing too fast for an Academy student’s eyes,” he questioned, sounding genuinely curious.

            Jiraiya was a new constant in my life – he was always checking up on his students, especially Minato. Both of us were orphans, while Hizashi and Fugaku had entire clans to back them up. Not to mention that my brother was the Sannin’s favorite, even if a teacher shouldn’t play favorites.

            Since I lived with my brother, it was a given that Jiraiya would get used to my presence.

            I shrugged, disinterested, “Onii-chan taught me how to sense chakra.”

            He looked at me oddly and I returned his stare, unamused.

            “I was hiding my chakra,” Jiraiya said and I couldn’t tell what his tone meant.

            Once again, I shrugged. Honestly, it didn’t matter to me if I could sense him or not when he was hiding his chakra signature. Ever since my older brother had given me tips how to sense other people, everyone started feeling funny. It was as if each person became a light bulb of a different color every time I concentrated on his or her life energy.

            When I first came into this world, chakra had been the strangest thing ever. It was in the very air I breathed as well as flowing through my body like blood. I was so good at controlling it simply because it hadn’t been there before. The same principle applied to sensing other people – once you knew their chakra signatures, it was hard to ignore it. A good sensor, Minato had told me, can even tell if someone is lying simply by feeling his or her chakra waves.

            I was going to say this – well, perhaps not _all_ this – to my brother’s teacher, but a strange feeling made me freeze. I turned my eyes to Jiraiya, noticing how his body tensed and his knees bended, as if preparing to jump. I gasped, clutching at my shirt.

            _It felt like I was choking!_

            “Kumi, stop your sensorial ability!” Jiraiya ordered sharply, too tense to bother sounding nice and polite. I tried to nod, but it felt as if someone had gripped my heart in their hands and was squeezing it.

            Minato had warned me about it when he first taught me how to sense chakra. He said that while very useful, being a sensor could be deadly if you didn’t learn how to survive under killing intent or malicious signatures.

            “It’s great being able to feel where everybody and everything is,” he had told me, looking as serious as an eleven-year-old boy could look. “However, weak or amateur sensors should proceed with caution.”

            When I asked why, he simply told me, “Not everything out there is meant to be felt.”

            My legs gave out under me and I wondered where my strength had gone. I needed to breathe – I needed air!

            _Stop_

_Choking_

_Me!_

I felt deep inside myself, searching around my panicking chakra pathways and reaching the bottom of my stomach. My chakra was roaring and hiding at the same time, trying to dispose of whatever energy was suppressing me, but also too afraid to comprehend what was happening.

            Each sensor had their own way of sensing chakra. Natural sensors had it easy: they could feel it simply by standing still and _feeling_. Most people, however, had to develop a way. Minato placed his finger on the ground, trying to connect with nature and the life it brought. I, on the other hand, managed to sense others by creating what could only be described as a _chakra field_ – I wore it as one would wear a cloak. Which made it easier to overwhelm me.

With a deep sigh, I closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down. Like a snake, the chakra I was using to sense others recoiled back and quieted down inside my very being. It felt good to breathe again.

            “You okay, kid?” Jiraiya asked me, reminding me of his presence. Despite my pathetic state, he had stood tall, observing the houses with narrowed eyes. I wonder what he saw. I wonder if he saw anything at all. Everything seemed eerily calm.

            “Yes,” I answered, not confident in my reply. My hands were shaking and I had to grip my knees to be able to stand. “What was _that_?”

            When Jiraiya replied, there was something in his voice that I couldn’t put my finger on. It sounded like disapproval, but not at me.

            “Minato’s decision to teach you how to sense chakra was a stupid one,” he said, for once, not praising my brother’s intellect as everybody did. “You do _not_ teach someone who has never felt killing intent before how to sense chakra. You’re lucky to be sane right now.”

            My face was burning and I am sure it was as red as Jiraiya’s clothing.

            “Hm,” I made, trying not to look too embarrassed and utterly failing by my companion’s stare. “Did you see the person releasing this killing intent?”

            Jiraiya shook his head, “It’s too dark and I’m crap at sensing chakra, really.”

            He paused.

            “I’d tell you to do your trick again, but Minato would kill me if something happened to you,” the Sannin admitted after contemplating the possibility for a few seconds.

            I tried not to roll my eyes, in spite of the situation.

            “Onii-chan is overprotective and paranoid. You’d think people were out to get or something.”

            It’s not like I was the heir to an important clan, like Kihito or Tsume, or had special abilities, such as the Sharingan or the Byakugan. Not to mention that most kidnappers never went for the biggest prize, since it was usually the most guarded. Take the Sarutobi family, for example. If you wanted to hit them where it hurt the most, you’d never try and kidnap Kihito, but his one-year-old brother, Asuma, instead. It would be far easier and equally devastating.

            I paused my train of thoughts.

            It was dark. We were away from the Main Street and closer to the clans’ compounds. My apartment was closer to the outskirts of Konoha than my old house, which was fine, since the Hokage Tower wasn’t exactly in the middle of the village.

            I recalled the sensation of choking I had felt a few minutes earlier – tried to remember _what_ the person’s chakra had told me. A sense of dread filled me and I inhaled, trying to keep myself calm. It would do no good to thing about the terror I had felt.

            _Kill._

_Kill._

_KILL!_

“Jiraiya-sensei,” I called him, my voice sounding flat. “Did you feel the killing intent too?”

            Puzzled, he stared down at me. It felt weird to stand beside him in this room, knowing that my brother was somewhere outside Konoha without his teacher. It felt weird to be so reassured by the fact that Jiraiya looked calm despite everything.

            I wondered if what I was about to tell him was going to take this calmness away.

            “I think the kidnappers my brother went after weren’t the only ones.”

            It made sense. If I had been the one responsible for kidnapping important targets, I would do it all in the same night – if one of the attempts didn’t work, at least it worked as a diversion.

            “And I’m pretty sure they are after Uchiha Mikoto.”

            Because the person’s chakra had wrapped around my neck like a hand and dragged me through the pits of fear. Had let their longs fingers curl around my thin neck and pull it toward whatever direction they had been heading.

            The Uchiha compound.

            You had to hit where it hurt the most, after all – _not the heir, but the closest to it._

* * *

 

            I felt useless.

            I was nine, yes, but had spent the last three years training like crazy to be better than I was the day before. Except for my exceptional ability in anything that involved chakra, I was pretty much average in everything else. I wasn’t creative enough to make good traps or illusions, my barely-there sealing ability was far from applicable in battle and my hand-to-hand combat was a work in progress.

            Still, it felt horrible to sit on a couch inside the Hokage Tower and wait for Jiraiya _and_ my brother’s return.

            “Would you like tea, Kumi-kun?” the Hokage questioned me, kindly.

            Not _any_ couch, though. The village leader’s couch.

            “I do not wish to be a burden, Hokage-sama,” I replied, politely. It _was_ one a.m. If the Hokage usually stayed up so late, I was glad my dream wasn’t to become one.

            He smiled at me, comprehensive. I had seen him from afar a few times – apparently, the Hokage liked to take strolls around the village and chatting with people – but had been in his office only once, after my mother’s death. As it was, he was the official guardian of all orphans who lived alone. Since my brother hadn’t been a Genin when Mom died, we received some money from the Orphan’s Fund every month. Now, however, we had to rely on our parents’ inheritance and Minato’s paycheck. It was tough, but we managed.

            Sarutobi Hiruzen was the typical Fire Country citizen: dark eyes, brown hair, tanned skin. Kihito’s face looked a lot like his, except my friend’s skin was lighter and his chin rounder. Looking at my leader’s kind smile it was hard to believe that a hardened-by-war ninja lay underneath.

            “I find tea quite calming,” he said.

            Quietly, I accepted the cup from his slightly wrinkled hands (eh, how old was he now, anyway?). It was obvious he wouldn’t leave me be. It was simpler to drink the freaking tea. I brought it to my lips and was unexpectedly surprised by how much better the lukewarm liquid made me feel.

            My surprise must have shown in my face, for the Hokage laughed softly.

            “Hokage-sama,” I called, wondering if my question was too intrusive. “Is this situation normal? Kidnapping important children, I mean.”

            He stopped writing on whatever document and looked up. I saw that my question caught him unprepared.

            “How old are you right now, Kumi-kun?” Hokage-sama questioned me instead of answering.

            “Nine, sir.”

            The Hokage twisted his lips in an understanding smile, “I see. Well, I must admit that many people try to abduct Konoha’s future generation for whichever reasons they may. Until now, no major village has succeeded.”

            I noticed how he purposely said _no major village_ as opposed to just _no one_. Sneaky man – not lying to a kid, but not being truthful.

            A knock captured our attention and my brother entered the office after a quiet “You may come in” from the village’s leader. My eyes immediately searched for signs of an injury, but the only things my brother sported were scratches and a few twigs in his hair.

            “Mii-chan?” Minato exclaimed, surprised by my presence. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

            _Funny question, you dolt_ , I thought, not really angry at him. His obviously fine appearance made any annoyance slip away from me. I turned my eyes to the girl beside my brother, noticing her much more disheveled hair and dirtied clothes. Her steel-gray eyes found mine and I looked away.

            Uzumaki Kushina was officially entering my older brother’s life, I concluded. A part of me wanted to rage at her – she was the one responsible for Naruto’s birth, which meant that _she_ was responsible for my brother’s death. She was the reason my brother could possibly die a few years from now.

            Except she was not. Not really.

            It takes two to fall in love and create a tiny new life. Minato was going to love this incredibly redheaded girl in front of me sometime in the future – love her enough to sacrifice his life for _their_ child. Moreover, I was going to be a minus somewhere in the equation, because I had nothing to do with it. Because I shouldn’t even exist.

            “Mii-chan?” A voice murmured before me. Minato was crouching in front of my still figure, his bigger hand touching my skinny knee.

            To my horror, I felt tears gathering in my eyes.

            “Baby brother, what happened?” Minato questioned, having not called me that way ever since Dad died.

            I shook my head, feeling his arms circling my frame and bringing me to his chest. I hadn’t noticed how much Minato had grown this past year, so I was surprised by how suddenly broad his shoulders felt. How tall was he right now? Had he already reached the one-meter and a half mark?

            “Your brother was worried about you, Minato-kun,” the Hokage explained – bless his soul – since I was too busy trying not to burst into tears. I gulped, determined not to look like a spluttering baby in the middle of the Hokage’s office.

            Minato gripped me tighter, his hands large enough to cover the back of my head.

            “I’m sorry for leaving without warning,” he said quietly, for my ears only. “I rushed without thinking.”

            _You never rush in without thinking_ , I wanted to protest, but I concentrated on not sobbing. Minato was a worrier, so he never forgot to think twice before starting something. Nevertheless, he had, because Kushina was involved and he had a silly crush on her already. Even if he wasn’t aware of it yet. Even if this silly crush would become overwhelming love. Even though his hands were hugging _me_ now, they would be hugging _her_ in the future – _her_ dying form, _her_ newborn son, _her_ warm body.

            I inhaled, forcing myself to calm much like half an hour before when the killing intent hit me like a tsunami. Minato was my most precious person in the world, but this did not necessarily mean that I was his – perhaps now, but not in the future, when he built a family of his own. And where would the years bring me? Where would I fit?

            A sudden peacefulness washed over me. No – not peacefulness. My entire being was still bubbling with burning bitterness and ugly jealously, but my mind was clear. I was training to be a ninja to _save_ my brother. To save the life he was supposed to live. To save the future he was supposed to have. To save the family he was supposed to live _for_.

            Even if this meant not being part of it.

* * *

 

            “It’s nice to meet you,” Uzumaki Kushina introduced herself to my a few minutes later, when I finally calmed down.

            She looked the same as a couple of years ago – stubborn chin, determined steel-gray eyes and fire-red hair. Her frame was at least twenty centimeters taller than mine was which irritated me less than I thought it would. Her features came together to form a very pretty face.

            I shook her hand and was surprised by how controlled I sounded when I said that _yes, it’s nice to meet you too_ and _yes, I’m Minato’s little brother, Kumi_. My tongue felt as dry as a desert inside my mouth and my heart felt as if it could stop at any moment, but my brain was working non-stop.

            This girl was going to be my sister-in-law. She hadn’t done anything to warrant my hatred. I was being silly. I was being childish. I was being stupid. I was being irrational.

            Still, who said that jealousy was a rational feeling?

            “You’re so cute, ‘ttebane!” Kushina exclaimed, pinching my cheeks.

            I blushed, more annoyed than anything. Minato scratched his head, embarrassed.

            I gulped down the negative feelings, determined to make this work. I was sure that this girl was going to enter our daily lives from now on and it would be a headache to be left feeling bitter all the time.

            I was eternally grateful when Jiraiya-sensei brought an unharmed and scared Mikoto back. The kidnappers - another team of Kumo Chūnin – hadn’t gotten far before being caught by the Toad Sannin. The night was closed with the Hokage accompanying my best girl friend back to her house, where the situation would be explained to her parents (had they even noticed her disappearance, I wondered).

            Likewise, Jiraiya bade his goodbye, shouting something or another about researching early in the morning and parting with a body-flicker technique that left the office smelling of smoke.

            Minato turned to me, offering his hand, and I took it, grateful for the attention.

            “We’ll take Kushina home first, okay?” He said, ruffling my hair. I huffed, though it was taken as a bratty response to the ruffle instead of just dismissal at his phrase.

            The redhead filled the silence during the entire walk. Her voice was loud, not mindful at all of the people sleeping inside their houses. Minato laughed in his quiet way sometimes, but I kept to myself.

            It was the first time I wondered if I wanted to save Minato’s future instead of just his life.


	8. The Genin Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Genin teams are announced, Kumi is a little ball of anxiety and his new teacher wonders.

            _Kumi,_

            _I'm so proud of you, sweetie! I can't believe that you're already a Genin - time sure flies, doesn't it? You used to be so tiny. I bet you've grown a lot by now._

_I hope your dreams are still burning with the same intensity as when I left. It may seem vague to you, but I'm sure your heart already knows exactly what you want, even if your mind doesn't consciously acknowledge it. You were shy, baby, but never indecisive. Remember that._

_I'm sure your brother is almost a Chūnin - if he isn't already - by now, so, please, do remind him to take care of himself instead of just_ of _you. He's a really bright boy, but I swear he's too silly to take seriously sometimes._

_Hope you doing well,_

_Mommy_

* * *

 

            Truth was: I still was that nervous, little kid that had entered the Academy full of hopes, goals and, most of all, shyness. Oh, I had gotten better at controlling my awkward discomfort in front of new people - but this didn't mean I had become extroverted or shameless at all.

            That's exactly why I was jittery, almost shaking as a falling leaf, in fact, while Saki-sensei called the new Genin teams. There was no chronological order to the call, which made me even more anxious.

            "Calm your tits down, Flea," Tsume laughed right beside me, using her usual crude language.

            As if I had breasts - or, rather, as if I'd ever have breasts. I'm not sure how they felt and, frankly, I didn't want to discover. There was a saying in our group that Tsume was more of a boy than I was. I should've been offended, but I tried to be honest with myself most of the time.

            I was weak in hand-to-hand combat. I was terrible at creating Genjutsu. I was afraid of tarantulas. Tsume was more boyish than myself. Some things just _had_ to be accepted. Simple.

            "You won't die in a team made up of acquaintances, you know," Kihito's verbal tick came to my attention. He was doing his favorite activity when sitting behind me - playing with my hair. I suppose I should cut it sometime - it _was_ reaching my hipbones, after all - but I could never bring myself to do it.

            "Yeah, you're gonna be the one to kill your teammates," Ren said and we all waited for what we knew was coming. A pause. "They'll suffer from cuteness overload."

            Mikoto giggled behind her small, creamy-colored hand and the Snarky-and-Crude Duo burst out laughing. Even Chitarō, the traitor, cracked a grin at my expense while my cheeks got flaming red as usual.

            Ren had spent our last year in the Academy commenting how cuter I was getting with each passing day. Had I been a girl, I'm sure I'd be over the moon. As a boy? Not so much. When Minato wanted to annoy me, he called me 'his baby sister'. He was lucky he was my favorite person in the world of he wouldn't be anything but a corpse.

            "You bunch, be quiet," Saki-sensei reprehended, exasperated with our usual antics, and we apologized as one...

            " _Sorry, sensei_."

            ... Some more sheepish than others.

            "As I was saying, Team Four consists of Uchiha Mikoto, Sarutobi Kihito and Inuzuka Tsume. Your sensei is called Koharu Utatane."

            As said people traded excited grins or satisfied glances, I thought over their teacher's name. It took me awhile for the answer to pop up - in fact, sensei called three teams whilst I was at it - but the Sandaime Hokage's female councilor came to the front of my mind.

            When I watched the series, I had always thought of her as too stiff and close-minded. Her militant way of life - almost as bad as Danzō's - seemed absolutely overbearing. After living in Konoha for ten years, however, I could understand - not like it, but understand - why she was so strict.

             I wondered for a moment how a shy Mikoto, a wild Tsume and a freedom-seeker Kihito would fare under her command. Well, at least they were bound to learn great things, if her reputation was to be believed.

            "Team One consists of Namikaze Kumi," my attention immediately wandered back to my teacher, "Nara Chitarō and Yamanaka Ren. Your sen-"

            " _Yes!"_ Ren, of course, celebrated, throwing his fist up in the air. The whole class laughed at the stupidity of the scene and Saki-sensei's right eyebrow was trembling with effort to reign his anger. "I get Chita _and_ Kumi-chan!"

            Briefly, I pondered over the fact that, most probably, some of my classmates still thought I was a girl even to this day.

            "Hey, Shorty, guess they considered you girly enough for the usual one-female-two-male team."

            "And you boyish enough," Chitarō came to my defense at once, replying to Tsume's thoughtless teasing with no real bite.

            The Inuzuka heir was going to respond - most likely with a kind "Fuck off" - but Saki-sensei threw a boor at her, which she neatly dodged. The perks of being the teacher of a bunch of twelve-year-old ninjas.

            "Team One," sensei started over, "Your sensei is Hatake Sakumo. Team Five consists of Tanaka Jin,..."

            The teacher kept on going, but I stopped in my tracks. Kakashi's father was my Genin sensei? Not to mention the man's own amazing reputation. Everybody who had ever heard of the Sannin had listened to Konoha's White Fang's tales as well. The man was S-ranked in most Bingo Books, for goodness' sake.

            I tried to ignore the fact that he'd probably kill himself five to six years from now and leave his child genius son all alone in the world. It wasn't my business.

* * *

 

            Okay, so it _became_ my business.

            Hatake Sakumo had come to collect at noon, calling for Team One and taking us to training ground six, where there was an amazing waterfall and trees so thick and ancient that you had to stop and stare at it for a few seconds.

            He was an imposing man to follow through the streets, politely greeting people when they called his name. His height was enormous - really, I could comprehend why Kakashi would grow up to be so tall - but his arms and torso weren't as bulky as Jiraiya's. Through the fuzzy memories of my first life, I had seen his hair - a long and wild ponytail and unkempt bangs hanging over his forehead protect - as white, kind of like the Toad Sannin, but it was more of a silver than anything. And his eyes could be as dark as an Uchiha's any day.

            All in all, he seemed like a man you didn't want to piss off.

            Which is why I was surprised when he turned finally stopped, turned around and gave us the most laidback grin I had ever seen. With the way Kakashi turned out in the series, I had expected a man as stern as Koharu Utatane, but it was obvious by the way his 32-teeth smile plastesred across his face that this was not the case.

            "Hello, ducklings," he said and Ren was the only one to chirp a response. Chitarō was too lazy and I was too cautious around new people to be so open. Especially adult males. After Father, it was hard trusting them from the beginning. Daddy was a special case, even if he had died when I was five

            Konoha's White Fang didn't seem disheartened by our silent mood, though.

            "My name is Hatake Sakumo and I'm your new sensei. We'll spend a long time together,  so I think an introduction would be a good way to go. Why don't you start?"

            He jerked his chin toward Ren, who smiled so widely you'd think he had won the lottery. His cheerful demeanor had gotten worse through the years and now he was as jumpy as a bird.

            "I'm Yamanaka Ren, but you can call me Ren," he said. Well, duh. "I'm eleven, but I'll be twelve soon enough and even my older brother won't be able to defeat me then!"

            Chitarō rolled his eyes good-naturedly. Between the three of us, Ren was the most childish one. His way of seeing life was too bright, even though his father was the current Head of the T&I Division. It seemed like a pre-pubescent Yamanaka trait, though, because Inoichi had been much the same way a couple of years before (at least, every time I met up with the guy) and Ino, from what I remember, had been/would be too.

            "I love my family, Chita, Kumi-chan, Kihito, Tsume and Mikoto," he would've kept listing his beloved friends had Chitarō not nudged his ribs with his elbow. "My dream is to be the strongest Yamanaka out there."

            For a moment, I thought our new teacher was overwhelmed by the amount of information or even the happy way it was delivered, but he simply laughed and asked Chitarō to introduce himself. I absently noted how much his laugh resembled a bark.

            "Nara Chitarō," he drawled and I hid my grin behind my fingers. "I love sleeping. I hate waking up. My dream is to be able to sleep for as long as I can."

            Sakumo-sensei - and, damn, the man had already earned the title - snickered. Given his reputation, it was doubtful he had never worked with a Nara before, so his reaction seemed to lean towards _amused_ rather than _shocked_.

            "And the tiny one?"

            Ren, excitable as a puppy, hugged my head at my newest nickname. And... tiny one? Seriously? One-hundred and twenty-five centimeters isn't even _that_ short, people. If I was as outspoken as Tsume or even Kihito, I'd have made a scene about my height or something. As it was, I merely started introducing myself.

            "My name is Namikaze Kumi and..."

            What could I say about me? I'd never done an introduction such as this before. In my first, no one had been really interested in ugly-me (what had been my name again?). In this life, well, Ren talked enough for the both of us.

            "I don't really have a dream, I guess," I finished, lamely. Chitarō patted my head, comfortingly.

            "Kumi-chan is a boy, Sakumo-sensei," Ren declared, stubbornly crossing his arms. "Just to make things clear."

            For a guy who liked to add _-chan_ to my name and call me cute at any given chance, Ren was pretty protective about my gender, always telling people off if they as much made me uncomfortable about my excessively girly appearance.

            Sakumo-sensei seemed surprised at the input, "Huh," he made, unsure. "I read his files, Ren-kun, don't worry."

            While my best dirty-blond friend grinned, apparently satisfied, my other best friend sighed in exasperation at Ren's antics.

            "Well," Sakumo-sensei said, after a few seconds of thoughtful silence. "Most Jōnin-sensei do a test of some sort to see if their students have the capacity it takes to be a Chūnin or are better off in another division, such as Genin Corps and so on."

            We nodded, aware of this fact. Our graduation class, for example, had had only eighteen people as opposed to the thirty-something when we started. Some gave up through the years, others were branched off during our last and second-to-last year to some department they showed potential in. As for us, the eighteen remaining, only half of us would stay with a Jōnin-sensei to teach us - the rest would either go back to the Academy or join the Corps.

            It was tough being a ninja, but who ever said it would be easy? I had trained every single day since I was six and here I was. Ready to face the world. Not.

            "I won't do any test," he announced and, despite our surprised expressions, kept on saying, "I'll be honest with _what_ this team is supposed to become."

            I frowned, unsure.

            "Until six months ago, I was the captain to an ANBU team called 'First Response Team' or, basically, Team One," Sakumo-sensei explained, his laidback demeanor from before completely extinguished. "One of my teammates retired after receiving a rather nasty injury and the other two were whisked away to different departments."

            I winced at the word _injury_. Despite training so hard, I had never broken a bone in my life or even cut myself seriously. I handled my kunai with caution and Minato never went _all_ out with me and - except perhaps for Kihito, who was pretty mean with his bō-staff - no Academy student was able to break something as hard as the femur, for example.

            Suddenly, I was very aware of my status as a green Genin.

            "However, Konoha has a tradition of always keeping a First Response Team, being said team made up of all-rounder fighters. Hokage-sama approached me about the possibility of keeping Team One active with the addition of, let's say, _new blood_."

            Ren was so excited beside me, you could practically feel him shaking. Even Chitarō was wide-eyed. I was simply very, very worried. What had Mom said in her last letter? _You're not an indecisive child?_ I was feeling definitely hesitant right now, because I could sense where Sakumo-sensei was going with this and, honestly, I didn't like it.

            My only goal in life was to keep my brother alive - and didn't that sound depressing? - and, perhaps, make as many friends as I could. I didn't want grandeur or fame or reputation. I also didn't want death, which seemed likely in such an important team.

            "We carefully observed the graduating class this year, testing its potential, and were satisfied with you three. Each one of you has your own weaknesses and strengths, but we - as in Hokage-sama and I - believe that, with careful instruction, you can evolve to be great and capable ninja."

            I gulped my anxiety down. They were putting a lot of faith in two eleven-year-old and one ten-year-old boys. Sure, we had our strong points, but were we capable of being as great as they thought we could?

            I carefully picked apart our abilities, frowning.

            Ren was, above everything, a Yamanaka, which meant that mind games were one of his best tricks. He could lie better than any of our friends, especially because you didn't expect it of someone so friendly. He was, along with Mikoto, the best at creating illusions and dispersing them. His Ninjutsu could use some work, as his chakra pools were considerably small, and his arsenal consisted of the basic Academy jutsus and his family ones. He had proven himself capable of winning in hand-to-hand combat, but it was obvious his specialty lied in long-range. One of his biggest problems was that, in spite of being great at manipulating people and making them spill their beans, his immaturity always showed itself at the worst times - such as when he needed to stop and _think_ before rushing in.

            Chitarō, on the other hand, was careful about everything he did. When fighting with his sword - which he had received from his father after his preference for the weapon became clear - he never wasted his energy in unnecessary movements, or flourishes, getting straight to the point. He was the better of us in decoding and strategizing and could solve a riddle faster than we could recite it. His Ninjutsu, however, was much like Ren's - based on his family jutsus and quickly spent with his small chakra pools.

            And, then, there was me. I had improved a lot in seal making and I was now confident enough to draw intermediate ones if given previous time and warning. My Ninjutsu was still my greatest strength as well as my control over chakra. My elemental affinity had come as a surprise this year, as I had not only one, but two - lightning and wind. According to the medic-nin who examined me at Saki-sensei's insistence, they were equally distributed inside myself, which was rare... in a good way, they told me. My Genjutsu could do some - or a lot - of work, as well as my traps and my weapon handling ability was non-existent beyond kunai and shuriken. After establishing a Taijutsu style suited to my body-type, I had improved a lot, but this didn't mean that I was great either, because I couldn't have gotten _any worse_. My sensorial ability had - to my great relief - gotten way better after Jiraiya's instruction and careful warning to not use during my first real mission.

            All in all, yes, I _could_ see where Hokage-sama and Sakumo-sensei were coming from. We had many things to improve and train, but many strong points as well. Not to mention our obvious capability to work together and function perfectly as a team.

            "Kumi?" Chitarō shook my arm softly, catching my attention.

            I looked up, noticing his worried gaze. Ren was busy firing a million questions at our suddenly overwhelmed teacher and hadn't noticed my wandering thoughts.

            "Are you okay?"

            I nodded, grateful for his always-present care, "I'm fine, Chita. Thanks, though."

            He patted my head for the second time in this hour and said nothing. He didn't need to say anything.

            "Slow down, Ren-kun," Sakumo-sensei laughed at our excited friend. "I'm sure those questions of yours will be answered soon enough. For now, I just want to ask _you_ , guys, some questions and hear what will be your answers."

            I narrowed my eyes. He had said that no tests would be done, but it certainly seemed like a test of some sort. Sakumo-sensei, however, wasn't a Jōnin for nothing and met my cautious gaze with a sheepish smile, trying to lower my guard with his laidback manner of behaving.

            "Who has the best Genjutsu out of you three?" Sensei started once Ren sat down once again.

            As one, I clutched Ren's sleeve and said person threw his hand up. Chitarō didn't bother with the obvious, but his eyes glanced at out blond friend, as if answering with no words.

            Sakumo-sensei nodded, thoughtful.

            "And the best Ninjutsu?"

            My cheeks got red at my friends' pointed gaze, but I didn't deny it. My ability to control chakra as I wanted was one of the few things I took pride in. Being able of performing a few elemental jutsu, sensing others and walking up and across any surface was my specialty, after all, and even my older brother told me how better than him I was at it.

            "Taijutsu?"

            This made us all pause. I was too tiny and weak to be of real use for now, despite my great flexibility and speed. Ren was better at fighting away from his opponents and Chitarō usually didn't bother engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

            "Chita... I guess?" I said, observing the silence that ensued.

            Ren shook his head, "Chita is the greatest at Kenjutsu, that's for sure, but your form is much cleaner than his."

            I shrugged, not really agreeing with him.

            "I trained my katas to be able to perform them as well as possible, but I'm not able to defeat anyone much stronger or taller than me for now and, really, I still commit silly mistakes during fighting."

            Sakumo-sensei was carefully observing our interaction and I _knew_ this just had to be some kind of test.

            "We'll settle this as a tie, then," he said when we didn't reach a conclusion. "Can any of you devise traps?"

            He had said that Hokage-sama and him had paid attention to us through this year, so it seemed obvious to me that he'd known our abilities. And he also said that our files were open to him as a Jōnin-sensei.

            "Chita and I can," Ren offered as an answer, sensing the Nara's laziness at work. "Kumi-chan is horrible at it, though."

            I looked away, "Sorry."

            Ren smiled at me, sending a message that meant well.

            "You can't be great at everything," he said, apologetic. "But you're great at many things, Kumi-chan."

            Sakumo-sensei nodded - in agreement to Ren's statement or in satisfaction, I didn't know, but both possibilities warmed me up inside. Was it because this man had such a terrible future that I was quickly warming up to his presence? Usually, I didn't do pity, because nobody had pitied me in my last life. Between my friends' friendly personalities, however, it was hard to be selfish and bitter. They always managed to bring out the best of me.

            Sakumo-sensei entertained us with a few more questions, going from who was capable of decoding to who was capable of running a hundred meters in less than twenty seconds. I discovered many things that would seem silly to know, but, at the same time, to not have known all these years - such as Ren's apparent ability to stay two hours hanging upside down despite his small chakra reserves or Chitarō's astounding way of managing to eat seven bowl of ramen without throwing up (gross _and_ wicked, by the way).

            "Do any of you know any seals?"

            I froze and Sakumo-sensei immediately noticed it. Damn it. Even though we had spent one entire year in the Academy learning how to lie and deceive, my unconscious reactions - such as surprise or anxiety - were always clear to someone who was looking for them.

            "Kumi-chan?" To my great despair, Sakumo-sensei had opted to use Ren's nickname. I hoped he would get bored of it quickly enough.

            "Hm... I've been learning how to draw seals for a few years now," I admitted and, to my relief, Ren and Chitarō didn't seem betrayed at the withhold information.

            Actually, the former seemed kind of amazed.

            "Really? Kumi-chan can draw seals? I heard from Onii-san that's it's very hard!"

            Chitarō's all-knowing eyes observed me.

            "Well, I'm not that good, really. I can create some explosive tags different from the standard ones and expand the usual storation scrolls, but any battle seal is beyond my current capability."

            Sakumo-sensei smiled at me, comfortingly.

            "Don't too hard on yourself, Kumi-chan," he said, putting his calloused hand on my bony shoulder. "Fūinjutsu is one of the hardest shinobi arts and it's amazing that you can all this given your age. Who is your teacher?"

            I bit my lip and sensei sensed my uneasiness.

            "Actually..." I paused. I knew a lecture was coming, because Jōnin-sensei were known as worriers, always wondering if they were breaking their subordinates. Even Kakashi had been/would be like that and that was saying something. "I kind of... learnt it all by myself."

            Sakumo-sensei seemed too stunned to speak for a moment, before his eyebrows knitted together.

            "How long have you been studying seals?"

            I tilted my head sideways, surprised at the lack of a lecture.

            "Since I was seven or eight, I think."

            Sensei sighed, putting a hand over his face, as if his appearance was belying his actual age. He crouched down in front of me, giving me his whole attention while my teammates watched with curiosity on their faces.

            "Fūinjutsu is as powerful as it's dangerous, Kumi," he said and, by his tone, I could he was treating me not as a child, but as a reckless subordinate meant to supervised. "I've never heard of someone learning it by themselves, much less someone as young as yourself."

            A pause.

            "I'll find a suitable teacher for you and make your lessons not clash with our training and mission hours. It's obvious that you're a prodigy in this, so it shouldn't be wasted. I'll have to tell your brother, though, since he's responsible for your safety as your guardian."

            I was overjoyed at the thought of having a teacher after years of tough sailing through the sealing world. On the other hand, telling Minato about my most guarded - well, second most guarded, right after my origin - secret wasn't something I was anxious to do.

            I nodded, feeling slightly defeated. Sensei laughed at my disheartened expression and patted my cheek carefully.

            "Ne, ne, Sakumo-sensei, you seem good with kids," Ren commented. "Kumi-chan usually doesn't like strangers."

            I turned to him, surprised that he had noticed as much, and Chitarō muttered something that sounded like "Bloody gossiper" beside me, which made no sense.

            Sakumo-sensei smiled sheepishly, scratching his cheek with his forefinger.

            "Ah, it's because of my baby boy. He isn't even one yet, so I'm always scared that I'll crush him or something. Natsumi, my wife, is much better at handling him than I am."

            Ren threw his arms around me, lifting me from the ground easily. He had gotten at least fifteen centimeters taller this year, so our height difference was getting more and more obvious.

            "Kumi-chan is all fragile looking, but you can pick him up without breaking him," he assured our teacher cheerfully.

            Sensei laughed, "I can see that."

            That's how my Genin life started. Had I known how hard things would get from there on, perhaps I would have sat down and cried instead.


	9. The Reminder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namikaze Minato worries, but not as much as Kumi does. 
> 
> Or:
> 
> In which Kumi is a dramatic little shit. As usual.

            "Ne, Kumi," Minato started, all too cheerful, "Did your Genin-sensei just tell me that you've been practicing one of the most dangerous shinobi arts with no supervision whatsoever for a few years now?"

            More than a little wary - my older brother _never_ called me by my entire name, much less in this I'm-going-to-kill-you-and-your-kids-in-your-sleep tone - I nodded. Ok. So, maybe, I wasn't half as smart as I liked to think I was. And it _was_ kind of arrogant of me to think that when I arrived in this world with my sixteen-year-old mentality I was capable of grand changes.

            Somehow, I didn't seem very mature anymore while desperately avoiding my brother's stern gaze. Minato was a great kid, always smiling and cracking (terrible) jokes to break a tense atmosphere. It's just that, sometimes, I forgot how scary he could be when he got mad. I had only seen it a couple of times, not only because he often tried to be as perfect as possible, but also because Minato was simply too diplomatic to seek conflict through direct confrontation.

            "I'm disappointed in you," Minato told me, his sapphire-blue eyes narrowed in reprehension.

            Something inside me deflated. Ever since our parents died, one after another, my brother had become my official guardian and didn't hold back on taking care of me. I frequently felt guilty for making Minato take such a big responsibility so early in his life and tried to be as good as possible. Obviously, I hadn't done very well.

            As always.

            "I thought you'd know better than to go and try something as potentially dangerous as this while alone," he sighed. I bit my lip, observing his tired expression. Damn. Now I felt even guiltier. I knew that Minato was practicing hard to enter the Chūnin Exams. He didn't need another thing on his plate right now.

            Sakumo-sensei patted my shoulder softly, taking extra care not to put too much weight on it with his big hands. He bowed his head in goodbye to my brother and told me to meet him in the team's training ground eight o'clock tomorrow morning. In a swirl of leaves and dust, gone he was.

            I looked up, feeling my cheeks burn in shame.

            "I'm sorry, Onii-chan," I said with as much sincerity as I could gather.

            Minato stood up, walked around the table and bended his knees and back to look me in the eyes. I could see myself reflected on them and my expression was a tad disheartened and a lot apologetic.

            "Kumi, you're my baby brother," he told, not exactly saying what I expected him to. "You've been training hard to be a shinobi and I acknowledge this with all my heart. This doesn't mean that something inside my head won't always tell me how small and fragile you are every time I look at you."

            I blinked, confused. Did I even look that tiny to other people? My arms and legs were kind of breakable, but surely not that much. Everything about this body of mine seemed small and compact, but not unhealthy as my first body seemed. I could run and jump and _stretch_. It was more than I could before.

            Minato poked my temple, gaining my attention back.

            "But I promised you I'd help you, didn't I? That's why I want you to tell me when you're doing something classified as dangerous or harmful - so I can protect you."

            He paused.

            "Do you understand?"

            Speechless, I nodded.

            "A verbal answer this time, Kumi. A promise even, if you will."

            I hesitated, my forehead wrinkling briefly. I wanted to reassure Minato about his worries, but I didn't want to break any promise later on when times would get rougher due to the future timeline.

            "Mii-chan?"

            The silly nickname completely broke my resolve. Minato was _my_ most important person _ever_. Period. I had never loved someone like I loved my brother. Not Father, Sister or Mother. Not even Daddy or Mom.

            He was my rock. He had been the one to catch me when my legs were still too weak to walk coordinately. He had been the one to gather me in his arms and play inside our own house when I was too shy to go to the park. He had been the one to reassure me that everything would be okay when Dad died. He had been there when I entered the Academy for the first time.

            He had been _everywhere_.

            The thought of him dying brought so much pain to my own being that, to my complete horror and embarrassment, my eyes started getting full of unshed tears. I was such a crybaby.

            "Waah, was I too strict, baby brother!" He exclaimed, not really asking. His expression had gone from serious to silly.

            I laughed through my tears, feeling silly myself.

            If I wanted him to live, I just had to work harder.

            Still, my promise was never made that day.

* * *

 

            I met Fūinjutsu teacher two weeks later, when Sakumo-sensei finally established how our days would run. According to him, my teacher was very young for a Sealing Master, but with his apprenticeship under the deceased Uzumaki Mito-sama, he was one of the most competent in the art.

            I was supposed to meet him in front of the Nara district, which should've surprised me greatly, but the man just _had_ to be of Nara-intellect to be so good at such a difficult shinobi art so young. I was surprised, however, by my brother's friends appearance.

            Akimichi Chōza, Yamanaka Inoichi and Nara Shikaku were this generation's Ino-Shika-Cho. They had graduated the same year as my brother and were also entering the next Chūnin Exams. With how young Naruto's generation had entered said exams, you'd think it was common - but becoming Chūnin was much harder than it sounded. It wasn't unusual to find fifteen-year-old Genin in times of peace.

            For a team about to take such a hard exam, they sure were relaxed.

            "Ah, Kumi-chan," Inoichi grinned at me, being the first to notice my quiet presence.

            He and Ren looked somewhat alike with their dirty-blond hair and dark green pupil-less eyes, but my best friend had a lot more of baby fat covering his cheeks, while the older Yamanaka was in this stage of puberty where you looked simply _awkward_ in your own body.

            "Hello," I greeted back, looking up.

            Chōza smiled gently and offered a package of chips, which I gratefully accepted. I had spent the morning getting my ass beat into shape by Sakumo-sensei and hadn't had the chance to have lunch yet.

            "If you're looking for Chita, he's been out for a few hours now," Shikaku told me, his hands in his pockets. He had changed a lot since the first time I met him four years ago - it was much easier to identify the differences between him and his future son, what with his rougher features, more tanned skin and darker hair color.

            I shook my head, straining my neck to look at them three in the eyes. Not only was I small for my age, but they were also four years older.

            "I know where Chita is," I replied. "Sakumo-sensei sent me here to meet my teacher."

            "Eh? Isn't Sakumo-san your teacher, though?" Inoichi scratched his head, a few strands of hair flying off his messy ponytail. "Man, you guys are so lucky to have Konoha's White Fang as your sensei."

            I smiled a little, mentally agreeing. Very lucky indeed.

            "I mean my Fūinjutsu teacher," I admitted, after a moment of hesitance. I had guarded my training in seals for so long that it felt weird to speak about it.

            "You want to learn sealing, Kumi-chan?" Chōza exclaimed, seemingly surprised.

            Chōza was the kindest out of the three, that much I knew. He didn't comment anything about Fūinjutsu being too hard for me or something of the type. Most people would discourage me just because of my appearance.

            "Onii-chan didn't tell you, did he?" I asked, somewhat embarrassed. "I've been learning for a few years now without his knowledge and he got mad at me a couple of weeks ago when he discovered."

            They appeared so stunned at my uncharacteristic sass that it took a few seconds for Shikaku to start chuckling.

            "Well, who knew you had it in you," he commented, dryly. An amused smirk twisted his lips.

            Inoichi nodded in agreement, "I thought Kumi-chan was much more obedient."

            My whole face felt hot so I turned on my heels and started running in the direction of the address given to me by Sakumo-sensei. I briefly bade goodbye and heard their chuckles at my expense.

            Stupid Ino-Shika-Cho.

            "Woah, easy there, kid," a person said when I almost ran into them in my haste to get away from the trio.

            I looked up to see a typical Nara guy - that is, a shade of brown or black hair and dark eyes - except his ponytail was the... weirdest thing ever? Rule number one about the Nara clan: they are lazy unless determined. Rule number two: they _always_ wear their hair up.

            The Nara, who I know noticed that couldn't be any older than twenty, laughed roughly at my expression.

            "Likes the hairdo, kid? Wouldn't believe how long it takes me to put it up like this," he commented. I blinked, still bewildered at how a ponytail could go two ways, almost like horn-structures.

            His hand fell heavy on my head and I winced.

            "You must be Namikaze Kumi," he said and at my surprised face, explained, "Sakumo-san told me about you. Said you'd be coming here today. I'm Nara Suzaku, your new teacher."

            I had known that my teacher was going to be young, of course, but it was still a surprise when I actually saw him. He was tall, like most Nara tend to be, and his shoulders were broad, but I noticed that his hands were unnaturally smooth for a ninja.

            "C'mon, let's go my house," he said, beckoning me forward with his hand. I followed him through the streets of the Nara district, barely observing the familiar houses. Most weekends during the Academy were spent here or at Ren's house, since Tsume's was always noisy because of the dogs, Mikoto's was full of - well - Uchiha, and Kihito's wasn't really a hella _district_.

            Suzaku's home was silent when we arrived and all the rooms were bare except for the occasional low table and soft cushions. There were scrolls, books and ink pots everywhere, though. I swear the equivalent of an entire library was scattered around his living-room.

            "Ne, Nara-san," I started, only to be interrupted. What was it with Nara's and interruptions?

            "None of this _-san_ bullshit, kid. Call me Suzaku."

            I nodded, "Hai. How old were you when Uzumaki-sama taught you?"

            He scratched his head distractedly, gathering some blank scrolls for us to use and already-used ink pots. A few dirty brushes left marks on the floor. The whole house felt _homey_ , somehow.

            "I was eight, I think, when Mito-sensei started teaching me."

            He indicated me to sit on a cushion and pulled a low wooden table toward us. I sat.

            "That's young," I commented, genuinely impressed. Uzumaki Mito-sama had died practically three years ago, which meant that Suzaku had completed his sealing apprenticeship in less than ten years. _This_ was amazing.

            Suzaku shrugged before throwing me a sideway glance.

            "Sakumo-san told me that you've been studying by yourself since you were seven," he started and I felt my cheeks getting red even though his tone didn't sound reprehending at all. "I don't how far you've gotten, kid, but the fact that you're still whole three years later tells me to expect great things from you."

            I had always like the Nara clan's sincerity. It was a breath of fresh air when compared to the whispers behind pretty hands and taunts of angry mouths from my old life. They were engraved inside my mind, much like you'd never forget your own birthday date.

            "I've never had a student before, much less one with previous knowledge, but tests are a drag, so we won't have one," Suzaku continued and I smiled at the typical Nara way of life. "I'll give you the first words Mito-sensei gave me and my best friend when she taught us so many years back."

            I was curious as to who was his best friend, but my desire to know Uzumaki-sama's words won over in the end. She had been one of the greatest Seal Master ever, after all.

            "Fūinjutsu is a weapon. You don't draw pretty flowers and expect them to grow from the parchment. You draw lines expecting them to be of use for you, that's why I advise you to use it wisely."

            I let the words sink.

            "There are many paths to follow - barrier casting, full-frontal attack, medicine, assassination. In a way, it's much like the shinobi life, but you don't have to be a shinobi to be a Fūinjutsu master. You just have to be agile in your mind and elegant with your hands. I'll teach you how to handle that weapon and let you discover for yourself how it'll useful in the future."

            Suzaku paused, thoughtful. I looked up at his face and was surprised to see softened eyes. He probably was reminiscing about his teacher. I pondered what kind of person Uzumaki-sama was.

            "Let's go over the basics and determine your current level," he decided.

            I nodded, eager to soak up all knowledge he could pass me. In the next two hours or so, we quietly worked. I found out that Suzaku-sensei could be a very sarcastic person and his mouth was dirtier than a sailor's, but he also could be surprisingly caring and attentive. He was only eighteen, which left me baffled.

            I found myself sad when our first class came to an end, but also somewhat relieved. His presence was overwhelming as much as it was soothing, even though this sounded completely impossible. It was comforting to know that such a great mind was in our side instead of with the enemies.

            "Come back in two days if you don't have a mission," Suzaku all but ordered, already occupying himself with one thing or another. When I turned around after putting my shoes in the entrance, he was gone from the living room.

            _Weird guy_ , I thought. And went back home.

* * *

 

            "Ku-mi-cha-an!" Ren gleefully shouted tomorrow morning, somehow managing to stretch my short name to a longer length. I prepared myself for impact just in time - his arms came around my neck and his chin rested atop of my head. I sighed at my already-coming-undone ponytail.

            Chitarō, who had been resting on the grass a few meters away from us, muttered something that sounded like "It's too early to be so loud" and turned on his other side to go back to sleep.

            "Good morning, guys," Sakumo-sensei said, appearing in a puff of smoke.

            "Morning!"

            "Good morning, Sakumo-sensei."

            "'Morning..."

            Our teacher chuckled at our different levels of enthusiasm. We were all different as night and day. There was Ren with his eternal cheerfulness, Chitarō and his lazy slouch, and me with my quiet demeanor. However, we still managed to work together under sensei's strict and hardworking eye.

            "I was thinking about working on your elemental affinities before doing missions today," Sakumo-sensei announced. "I know the Yamanaka and the Nara clan usually rely on their secret techniques, but since this is a First Response Team, it's expected of you to be an all-rounder."

            Chitarō yawned widely, "What a drag."

            Ren laughed, passing an arm around the Nara's neck.

            "Don't be boring, Chita," he admonished, shaking a finger in front of said person's face. Chitarō batted it away.

            Sakumo-sensei clapped twice to gain our attention back.

            "Ok, it will go like this," he made a cross sign familiar to me an entire lifetime back. Two solid clones appeared much like he had done a couple of minutes earlier. "Chita-kun, follow my clone here - he'll teach you how to start molding Earth chakra. Ren, you go the other way to learn how to expel Fire chakra."

            Both my friends nodded, immediately getting serious, and went to do what they were assigned. I turned to my teacher, putting my fingers together anxiously. He smiled down at me, instantly calming me down.

            "I read in your file that you have a dual affinity," Sakumo-sensei started and I nodded, familiar with the term.

            I had studied a lot about it after my appointment with a medic-nin last year. It simply meant that my two elemental affinities were equally distributed. Sometimes, it led to a new kekkei genkai, but it usually stayed as it was, only being an easier way of learning two affinities. As it was kind of required of us to have two of them to be a Jōnin, I had an advantage.

            "Wind and lightning," he said, pausing - testing the words. "Both of them are of one of rarest out there, which is both good and bad. You'll take many by surprise. However, finding someone capable of teaching you new things is a little harder than usual."

            I sighed, because he was right. No matter how genius-like my older brother was, he was still a high-level Genin with no grand experiences under his belt. He also had a Wind affinity, but this didn't mean much right now. Not to mention that he favored Taijutsu instead of Ninjutsu like I did.

            "I also have a Lightning affinity," Sakumo-sensei told me, turning his lips upwards, encouragingly. "And you told me a few days ago that you only know two Wind techniques, so I think we'll start working on how to mold Lightining chakra today."

            He crouched down, gathering a few leaves on his big hands. I took one when he indicated me to do so.

            "Let's put your excellent chakra control to use. As you should know by now," he smiled as he said that, well aware of how much of a bookworm I was. I looked away, blushing. "Each type of chakra has a way of working. I don't control Wind, but I heard that you have to make it as thin as possible, right?"

            "Yes, sensei."

            "With Lightning you have to make it _flow_ as fast as possible. In a way, it's like Wind - it'll only be fast if it's thin - but it's not gentle at all. Actually, it _snaps_."

            I closed my eyes, trying to picture it inside me head. Chakra theory was one of my favorite subjects, because it didn't sound like anything from my old life and world. I absolutely adored the endless possibilities and was always eager to test it flexibility and applicability.

            I inhaled slowly, concentrating solely on the leaf resting inside the cocoon I formed with my hands. Sakumo-sensei was quiet beside me and the only reason I felt the seasoned ninja was because of my growing sensor ability.

            It's hard to describe how chakra felt. It's like a river of lava. It's like being born again.

            It had been flowing peacefully inside me when I finally reached it. The energy stiffened for a moment, before relenting at my touch and bending at my will. Used to the notion, it narrowed by itself. I frowned.

            _That's not what I want_ , I thought and my chakra responded to it, crackling madly.

            "Careful," sensei murmured beside me, taking my hands in his and directing his own chakra at me. The foreign energy startled me for a moment, but it helped - my chakra calmed down, going from an uncontrollable crackle to a quiet sizzle.

            It spread on the palms of my hands and on the very tips of my fingers before snapping. A breaking sound reached my ears and I opened my eyes to find a crunched leaf.

            "I did it," I murmured to myself, shocked into silence for a few seconds, before holding the lead up in celebration. I turned to my teacher, actually acting my supposed age, "Sensei, I did it!"

            "That you did," he smiled, ruffling my hair and ending Ren's work of ruining it. I couldn't bring myself to care.

* * *

 

            When I went home later that day, I heard Minato busying himself in our kitchen. Since the entrance gave way to the tiny living room we had, I couldn't see what he was doing, but whatever it was, it smelt great.

            "Welcome home," he called, putting his head in the corridor. Observing my expression, my brother asked, "Why so content?"

            "I manage to control my Lightning chakra," I told him, giddy with happiness. Ren had been impressed, babbling about he hadn't even manage to make the tips of his leaf burn, while Chitarō had just stood there in his quiet way of giving praise.

            "I still can't get over at how good you are with chakra, seriously," Minato shook his head at me, bewildered.  

            I was smiling, about to say something, when a feminine voice said from the kitchen, "Is it Chibi-chan?"

            My brother turned back around to answer and the smile was wiped off my face in a second.

            Kushina.

            Great.

            "Come eat," Minato said, calling me forward with a wave of his hand. "I made hotpot for us and invited Kushina over."

            I froze for a millisecond, but weeks of lying to my brother and an entire lifetime of burying my broken feelings had me left great at masking my emotions.

            "I've eaten already," I found myself saying. "Sensei paid for us after our mission."

            His face fell and I added, genuinely feeling guilty for lying, "Sorry."

            I wasn't feeling guilty enough to stay in the same room as the loud redhead, though. Minato nodded, going back to the kitchen and I went to our room (we could only afford a one-room apartment, after all). The emptiness inside me went beyond my hunger.

            I felt silly for letting a twelve-year-old motor-mouth girl ruin my day, but couldn't stop myself from resenting Minato. He had been budy the last weeks, training hard for the upcoming Chūnin Exams, and dinner time had been reserved for us. He'd go to Suna in a couple of months to take the exam and I'd be left alone for more than a month if everything went right. I'd miss him. And that's exactly why I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.

            Kushina wasn't included in the plans. But then again, hadn't she been invited to hang around my brother ever since they became friends? I should be used to it.

            It seemed impossible to get used to the idea that my brother would die with her in less than two decades if I did nothing, though. Her presence was just a heavy reminder. A reminder I'd rather not have.

            I sighed, silently creeping back to the entrance and putting my shoes on. I wondered if Chitarō would be up to eating dinner with me. I paused, listening to Kushina's voice next door and my brother much quieter responses. When they laughed at something, I couldn't stay there anymore and went out without warning.

            It was cold outside, even though it was almost summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, back again! Thank you so much for your support! Your kudos, bookmarks and comments always make my day brighter :D


	10. The Personalities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi decides that Kumi is a girl. 
> 
> Or:
> 
> In which Kumi's friends are - kind of - supportive, Kakashi is cute and Nara Shikaku is his genius self without too much effort. Or none at all.

            "So, you know," Kihito started, breaking the silence between us, "Why are we eating ramen at ten o'clock in the night?"

            Ren slurped said noodles, splashing broth all over his side companions - Chita was too busy trying to stay awake and Tsume simply didn't care - before answering.

            "Kumi-chan needs support and we are here to offer it," he replied in kind of _duh_ tone.

            Kihito rolled his dark eyes good-naturedly, "Silly me. Of course."

            "Seriously, dude, I can't understand why you dislike the Uzumaki so much," Tsume commented, her canine companion barking in what appeared to be agreement.  "I mean, she's loud, yeah, but your hair smells better than hers anyway, don't worry."

            My cheeks felt incriminatingly hot when I protested, "I don't care about the way my hair smells."

            She sent me a look that said " _Sure"_ and went back to eating the pork over her noodles. Chita, who had been sitting beside me this entire conversation, patted the back of my head sympathetically.

            "I think it's because you are an only child that you cannot comprehend, Tsume," Mikoto concluded from the other side of me. A long time ago, she had tried to attach _-chan_ to the Inuzuka girl's name. Tried.

            Tsume snorted as un-ladylike as possible.

            "Shorty here is jealous. Big deal. Even babies understand that."

            "Can you guys please stop saying that I'm jealous?" I requested, already regretting my decision of getting Chita to call everyone through his father's owl summoning contract.

            Everyone stopped their eating to look at me from the high-up sitting stools - even Mikoto's little brother, Kizoku, who had been dragged here with his sister.

            "It's ok, Kumi-chan," Mikoto tried to console me. "It's not uncommon for the younger siblings to be jealous over their older siblings' friends or love interests."

            Kizoku blew air through his nose on Mikoto's right, as if disbelieving. At eight years old and the official Uchiha Heir, he was an annoying little shit (a word that my older brother would never caught me saying), but we had to tolerate him sometimes when my best girl friend decided to try making him have friends. It never worked either way. He was Uchiha at its finest.

            I entrusted Kihito the mission of sending Kizoku a glare because of his snort, since Mikoto's hurt at his response was obvious and my evil eyes were just puppy glares.

            "Anyway," Ren said after a brief moment of silence in which the youngest Uchiha looked away and the male part of the Snarky-and-Crude Duo smirked, "You shouldn't let Kushina-san bother you so much, Kumi-chan. I mean, Tsume is right - she's a loudmouth but otherwise harmless."

            _Except for the little fact that she can be one of the factors of my brother's death_ , I thought somewhat cynically, bitterly. I sighed, trying not to think this way. I was already awkward enough around most people without being moody. Becoming bitter over things had always been one my greatest faults.

            "Thanks for coming here, guys," I decided not to elaborate on an answer.

            A chorus of variation of "No problem" were my reply. And it was probably true - in this world, especially if you were the child of a shinobi, most adults didn't bat an eye at seeing a bunch of ten, eleven and twelve year olds outside at this hour of the night. This didn't mean that they wouldn't want to warned of their children going out, though. I particularly wasn't anxious to see my older brother's expression when I came back from my nightly excursion.

            Kihito stretched his arms above his head, yawning widely.

            "I'm done here, people," he announced, putting his money on the counter and standing up. "Asuma has been pestering me for days about playing a game and whatnot."

            Tsume crackled madly at this, "I bet that's just an excuse for your old-man back. Ha! Better yet, I bet that's just an excuse for moaning like a girl for aching over Koharu-sensei's harsh training methods!"

            The Sarutobi sent her an unimpressed stare, "I can kick your ass all over Konoha tomorrow if you want."

            "You're so on, Monkey Boy," she started getting up, only to be pushed back by Ren.

            "Sit down," he commanded like you would a dog and Tsume complied, much to our amusement.

            Mikoto giggled, "If you calm down, I'll buy you dango tomorrow, Tsume."

            The Inuzuka heir - no matter what her clan said about it - nodded in agreement and I imagined a tail waving behind her. Chita flicked my ear to catch my attention and jutted his chin out in the direction of the street.

            "C'mon, I'll take you home," he said, paying for his meal.

            I did the same, briefly looking over to Ren, who smiled at me.

            "See you later," he mouthed with his typical grin. I bade goodbye to everybody, receiving smiles and shouts in response (Kizoku's bored stared was dutifully ignored), before following my other best friend.

            Chitarō walked calmly beside me, his hands deep in his pockets and no hurry in his steps. I didn't ask why he was bothering on taking me home, as his presence was relaxing and he probably knew this. He knew everything, I swear.

            "Ne," he finally said when we were two streets away from my apartment and eight or nine away from his district. "Minato would never substitute you or anything. You know this, right?"

            I hesitated, because I _knew_ he would not. A part of me felt guilty for interfering with the storyline like this - what if I changed something so much that a bigger war was bound to happen? What if Naruto was never born because I didn't approve of Kushina? - and another part of me just felt arrogant for thinking so high of myself.            What could a one meter and twenty-five centimeters flea like me change? What could a weak-filled shorty like me accomplish in this big ass-kicking world? Self-pity didn't do me any good, though, so I stopped pondering over it.

            "I know this," I decided on answering.

            "Good," was his quiet reply, followed by his usual hair ruffle. He was as tall as Ren, but his shoulders were getting broader than our blond friend's. I wondered over his future look, if he would still look like Shikamaru with freckles and if his eyes would sharpen like Shikaku's did.

            When we reached my apartment, he waved goodbye and walked away without another word. I barely blinked at the attitude, more than used to it, and prepared myself for the Inquisition.

            My first thought when I arrived, after briefly expanding my chakra field and searching for Kushina's bright chakra signature, was _She went home_. The redhead's chakra was easy to sense, even more to an amateur at it like me. Each person had their own 'light bulb' when they entered my limited chakra field, practically splashing themselves over my abstract cloak of energy, and the Uzumaki girl was no different. But while most of them were subdued, hers was like a flashlight. Useful, but annoying if put directly in front of your eye.

            Minato's chakra, on the other hand, was fresh like spring.

            His face when I went through the threshold was anything but spring-like, though. If anything, he looked uncharacteristically furious. I've been making him mad a lot these past days. I stupidly thought if any of us were entering our teenager phase. I wasn't ready for puberty all over again.

            "Where were you?" Was his first question. He didn't give me time to answer. "I went to your room after dinner and you _weren't fucking there_."

            I was taken aback by the swear word. Minato _never_ swore. Never.

            "I went to Chitarō's," I told him a pretty white lie. If he was this furious about me going out, imagine if I told him about lying over dinner.

            "And you didn't warn me because...?"

            His eyes were at least three shades darker than normal.

            "Onii-chan, why are you-" I started, only to get interrupted.

            "Because I was worried!" He replied, moving forward to take me by my forearms. His hands felt strangely huge and cold against my skin. "Ever since Kushina was kidnapped, I keep thinking about how easy it is to enter Konoha and kidnap children. About how easy it would be to kidnap _you_ and-"

            "I'm not important," I told him over his musings. My voice sounded strange on my ears.

            He stopped everything to look me in the eyes.

            "Excuse me?"

            "I'm not important," I repeated, sure that he was getting dumber somehow. "I'm not a clan heir or in possession of a bloodline, so..."

            His fingers curled around my forearms tighter. It was starting to hurt, but I didn't blame him for it, for one reason or another. His calm persona was breaking in front of me and it looked a mixture of fascinating and scary.

            " _You're important to me!_ "

            I blinked, not even breathing.

            "I don't care if you think of yourself as unimportant, but you sure as hell better try to stay alive on missions, got it? I care about you, Kumi. Damn," he let go of my arms to rub his palm over his tired face. "Shit, baby brother, I love you. You're always going to be important to me. Just... be careful, ok?"

            I nodded, numb. He'd told me _I love you_ at least a hundred times by this time in my life, but it sounded different now. He'd always said it jokingly, as if it was his duty as an older brother to love his little brother. Now it felt _real_. It felt as if, yes, he'd never choose Kushina over me and this filled me with a sense of smugness, happiness and dread.

            What was I doing with the future?

* * *

 

            The front of the envelope read in neat kanji _For when your brother starts to seem imperfect._

            I opened it with cautious fingers.

            _Remember that he is always trying his best. It won't work all the time though._

_Love,_

_Mommy_

* * *

 

            When Sakumo-sensei said that his son wasn't even one yet I had thought that Kakashi was a newborn or something of the type. Observing his young face, however, I was sure that he was closer to one than anything else.

            It was weird seeing his face, but it didn't seem as spectacular as I thought it would. Maybe because right now he was only a baby with a cute button nose with not even enough silver hair for it to defy gravity. He was small (according to a laughing sensei, exactly sixty centimeters tinier than me, and wasn't that just depressing?), being light enough to carry around.

            It felt good to be taller than someone - even a baby, yes - until said baby opened his mouth and, demanding to be hugged, said, "Onee-chan."

            I stopped in my tracks. Ren was laughing quietly to himself while Sakumo-sensei and Chitarō were trying their hardest not to imitate the blond.

            I looked down at the baby in my arms.

            _Kakashi is old enough to talk_ , I thought. _Ok. I can deal with this_. My cheeks still felt on fire, though, so I gave the silver-haired baby back to his father. He protested in sensei's hold, gesturing to me with his chubby fingers.

            "Wanna go Onee-chan," he said with all the stubbornness an almost one-year-old boy could gather.

            "Yeah, let him go with his big sister," Ren teased, choking on his laugh.

            I crossed my arms. Natsumi-san, sensei's wife, chose this moment to come back from the kitchen. She was a tall, willowy woman with caramel hair curled into waves and kind dark gray eyes that her son obviously inherited. Not so sure on the _kind_ part anymore.

            "What happened?" She asked, seeing us not talking and Kakashi struggling to get out of his father's hold.

            Chitarō elbowed Ren to get him to stop chuckling and drawled, "Kakashi thinks Kumi is a girl."

            Natsumi blinked and turned her eyes to me. I blushed under her stare. She smiled in response, pinching my cheek, which should have felt like when Airi-oba-san did it, but it did not. Her looks were just too motherly.

            "Kumi-chan is cute," she said, pushing stray strands of my hair back to where they had fell off my high ponytail.

            My team couldn't contain themselves and exploded in laughter. Kakashi only buffed, annoyed at not getting away. I felt like melting into the ground.

* * *

 

            "Hm, sensei?" I called, not taking my eyes off the concentrated teenager sitting in front of me.

            "Yes?" He answered from the kitchen. A second later he came back with three cups filled with tea and a tray of saltine crackers (the kind without flavor you can't stop eating for one reason or another, by the way).

            "Why is Shikaku-san here?"

            I winced as they looked at me, because my question sounded kind of rude. Said Nara didn't seem to mind though, smirking in a way that I had more or less gotten used to, as if seeing my sassy side amused him to no end. My sealing teacher simply sighed in exasperation.

            "Well, you're crazily talented in Fūinjutsu," Suzaku-sensei started saying and I felt a ball of contentment inside me from the praise, only for it to be burst three seconds later with his next phrase, "But you have no creativity whatsoever."

            I let my head fall down. Through my bangs, I noticed that Shikaku had gone back to playing with the shogi board by himself.

            "You can be great at sealing by learning from other pre-established seals, but to be considered a Master, you have to be able to write you own. I asked Shikaku to come here as a favor for me," he indicated said Clan Heir with a lazy wave. "Brat has been owing me for awhile now."

            "You speak like an old man, cousin," commented Shikaku, taking me by surprise. I was sure he was too immersed in his own solitaire game.

            "Tch," was Suzaku-sensei's reply. He busied himself drinking his tea while the older brother of my best friend took a few minutes explaining me the rules. Despite having known Chitarō for years, I'd never bothered to learn the game.

            In a way, it was like chess, which I had played with Minato at least twice a week while he had been in the Academy. When he became a Genin, our games stopped almost completely. I wondered briefly if it would help me get more inventive - after all, chess hadn't done much for me.

            "You can start," Shikaku indicated the pieces in front of me, giving me a chance not to humiliate myself too much.

            In the end, I got humiliated anyway. I lost in less than five minutes, which made Suzaku-sensei snort and shake his head at me. We kept playing for the next hour, taking half of my Fūinjutsu class time. When I had finally lost for the fifteenth time, sensei asked us to stop.

            "So, what do you think?" My teacher asked, but he wasn't looking at me. He was observing Shikaku's carefully analytical eyes.

            I remember the first time I glanced at the Nara heir all these years ago. It's hard to forget the way his dark eyes sharpened on the corners to deconstruct me like a puzzle just to put it all back together with a conclusion. It had been kind of intimidating, really.

            I felt much the same way right now.

            The Nara heir hummed thoughtfully before speaking, "Kumi has a very distinct mind for someone his age. Usually, people under fifteen don't have the patience to sit down and think for as long as a good shogi game requires. More often than not, they get bored in the middle of it and start making idiotic mistakes which costs them their victory."

            Shikaku paused, his eyes catching mine. I gulped my nervousism

            "Kumi, however, seems to have the necessary calm to execute the moves when they are supposed to happen. On the other hand, his patience can become deadly if he hesitates too much, making it just a hinder to his progress - that is, he gets too cautious and rethinks too much, making it seem like he doesn't think outside the box when he's just trying to avoid making mistakes."

            I sat there, shocked beyond words. Had Shikaku unraveled my mind through an hour of playing shogi? I could expect this from an Yamanaka - after all, they were Konoha's most capable psychologists - but from the Nara heir it was unbelievable. No. Not unbelievable, simply unexpected.

            Shikaku's genius mind and keen eyes seemed capable of absorbing everything.

            A sigh took me out of my thoughts. I turned my head to my sealing teacher.

            "Well, knowing that he's not as unimaginative as I thought he was sounds good enough to me," he said and my face got red.

            A part of me was somewhat angry at his comment, but it was much too true for me to start shouting at him. Not that I would either way.

            Shikaku stood up, putting his jacket back over his shoulders. Despite being wide awake a few minutes ago, his eyelids were starting to drop tiredly. Nara and their nap hours.

            "Well, I have a team meeting in a couple of hours, so I'll find a place to sleep for awhile," the Nara heir said, heading for the door. Suzaku-sensei waved in goodbye and I lightly bowed in thanks for his cooperation and insight.

            Unexpectedly, Shikaku stopped before going out. He felt around his pockets before taking out a hair-tie and throwing it to me. I caught it between my hands, surprised at his thoughtfulness - in one way or another, he had noticed that my too-long hair was bothering me during our game. Huh. And here I had thought he had been looking solely to the board and the pieces. I probably should analyze my surroundings better.

            I felt a hand over my head and looked up to find my teacher grinning - well, twisting his lips up, really - at me.

            "Now that I know your strong and weak points, I think we are ready to advance even more."

            I gulped, because rule number three about the Nara clan was dutifully followed by everybody: a motivated Nara is a scary Nara.

* * *

 

            I crouched right behind Ren, so close that I could feel the hair at his nape tickling my nose. The forest was deadly silent and, even though it was midday, everything seemed slow and gray.

            I exhaled and inhaled with no hurry, forcing myself to be quiet and listen.

            "Can you feel it?" Ren murmured, not turning his head towards me to speak.

            I tried to expand my chakra field, trying to remember all of Jiraiya-sensei and Sakumo-sensei's tips for sensing others, but there was no human within my short range. I closed my eyes, blocking one of my senses to focus on the others.

            A light bulb appeared in my abstract circle of chakra, entering my field. It felt familiar - it felt as if a tree was swaying with the wind and the smell of the leaves could go on and on until they reached my nose.

            Chitarō.

            "There," I opened my eyes to point at the right direction over Ren's shoulder.

            He nodded, standing up and jumping on a tree branch. I followed him with no fanfare. Sakumo-sensei had been drilling exercises and battle formations into us since day two, which meant that some things simply became ingrained by now. Jumping from branch to branch three steps behind Ren, even accompanying the rhythm of his breathing, felt as natural as clinging to flat surfaces with the soles of my feet.

            When a kunai flew in my direction, I dodged in response to the sudden disruption in my chakra field. Thankfully, I had gotten better at sensing weapons through this field - an advantage that Minato's way of sensing didn't have - but I still had a long way to go. It only worked if I was aware of an enemy being close and if their ill-intention was quite clear.

            As soon as I dodged the kunai, Ren turned around by leaning his upper half lower and twisting on his hands. In a quarter of a secong, his body flew in the direction of the thrown weapon. I stepped behind him, not taking any course of action except for sending a chakra pulse through the forest.

            Chitarō's location came to me in a wave of response.

            "Right," I commanded Ren and he turned this way without questioning me. "Left and up."

            Chitarō's familiar light bulb trembled, showing his brief panic and discomfort, before we found him hanging upside down on the highest branch of the tree we had been heading to.

            Ren started laughing without ceremony, clutching at his sides at the sight our lazy best friend.

            "Tch," Chitarō did and I was reminded of his cousin a few days earlier. I absently thanked whatever gods out there for not having a class with Suzaku-sensei today. Last time had been too much.

             Sakumo-sensei appeared on the tree beside ours, his arms crossed over his chest.

            "Ren, Kumi," he called and we immediately turned to him, paying attention to his instructions. His stance showed how satisfied he was with our obedience out in the field. "Good job on tracking Chitarō. You showed great understanding of my lesson yesterday."

            His eyes fell on Ren.

            "You didn't question your mission leader despite not being able to see him right behind, which shows your confidence in his instructions. You got faster too. Well done," he praised. My best friend grinned sheepishly, scratching his cheek in uncharacteristic embarrassment.

            I snapped back to attention when sensei called me.

            "Kumi-chan, you thought things through and developed a way of cornering Chitarō without losing awareness of where he was - this is one of the most important traits in a tracker team. Also, well done."

            I blushed at his soft smile, delighted at our success.

            "Chitarō," Sakumo-sensei's eyes showed the slight amusement he felt. "You were doing a great job hiding in the beginning, but you got careless in your mission to injure one of your pursuers and let yourself get caught. You're hanging upside down because you didn't think that there could be traps previously done. I expected a greater strategy coming from you, that's why I put you alone."

            Chitarō sighed and I wasn't sure if his face was red due to the blood rushing to his head or shame. Probably the former, since he _never_ blushed. Perhaps it was one of the unspoken Nara rules - _never blush, just smirk_ or something stupid like that. I'm sure it was one of the Hyūga and the Uchiha official rules.

            "Anyway, your brothers are departing today, right?" Sakumo-sensei asked us, going from his strict self to his playful self in seconds.

            Ren nodded excitedly, "Yeah! Nii-san was so anxious yesterday Dad had to give him a talk."

            I laughed, picturing Inoichi freaking out. He was the most expressive and fidgety of this generation's Ino-Shika-Chō. It was easy to imagine his dirty-blond hair flying everywhere in his desperation.

            "Aniki was being his smug self like always," Chitarō yawned, before yelping at the sudden movement Ren made with the rope holding him. "Hey, careful there, Ren!"

            "Uh, sorry, Chita."

            "Idiot."

            I smiled at their exchange.

            I looked up at the blue sky. It was such a beautiful day it seemed like a pity to stay inside and do nothing. I was glad to be outside practicing with my team in days like this.

            _Good luck, Onii-chan_ , I prayed. Minato's determined face showed itself in my mind, his confident grin glaringly engraved in my brain. He had seemed so in control of himself yesterday I was sure he'd come back a Chūnin.

            Even so, a month and a half felt like a long time spend alone in my apartment. I wondered if Ren would drag me to his house to have a really long sleepover.

            "Hey, guys," I called them. Both my friends looked up from their bickering at me. Sensei had gone off to gather the scrolls he'd brought to us earlier. "Airi-oba-san invited us for an afternoon tea later today, want to go?"

            Ren - no surprise there - was the first to nod in agreement at the new plan.

            "She makes the best mint tea out there, I swear," he commented cheerfully.

            Chitarō put a hand on his face, as if incapable of believing in Ren's childishness. I smiled, because he was just covering the fact that he liked to play with Airi-oba-san's four-year-old son, Genma. Despite the age difference, they were very much alike: both were laid-back and got easily exasperated at Ren's antics.

            "Let's have lunch, ducklings," Sakumo-sensei shouted from the ground.

            As Ren practically pummeled himself to ground, screaming one thing or another about hunger, and Chitarō grumbled about a nap time, I quietly followed them down. Moments like this reminded me life here was good, in spite of all plans and expectations.

            If only it would stay like this forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, guys, I kinda realized that, because I hit the space bar to get every paragraph aligned, the format is weird when you read on the cellphone (at least at mine). Sorry for that, I guess? I mean, I'll keep writing this way 'cause I can't leave without space at the beginning of a paragraph without drowning in silly madness. That's it.
> 
> Thank you for your kudos and comments and bookmarks! Didn't expect them so quickly since it's a self-insert and I'm not quite sure if people like it that much. Thanks again!


	11. The Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi dreams about dying and wakes to discover that he had actually died. Once, at least.

            Until I had woken up, it didn't feel like a dream at all.

            I had been hiding in my usual coffee shop for a couple of hours. Father was coming home late as usual and Sister had busied herself with a bunch of friends, which was my cue to get out of the house. Sister - _Tina_ , my brain helpfully supplied - could tolerate me on her best days, but those usually were away from her friends.

            It was already past eight at night and the library never stayed open beyond six, hence why my chosen place had been the coffee shop three blocks down from my house. My mouth was getting too sweet with the four cups of chamomile tea I had drunk, but I wasn't too keen on getting kicked out of my hiding spot from not ordering anything.

            I had been sitting by the show window. I remember always sitting beside it, because the city lights calmed me down in a way that voices and music never could. Perhaps because it showed life, but only brought silence. Deep inside, I wanted companionship, but not negative feelings - and light seemed like a good way to show me that people could be alive without making too much noise.

            I also remember the wave of hurt that washed over me for a few seconds that day.

            I looked up from my book - and for the life of me, I couldn't remember its name - when a horrible screech reached my eardrums. I winced, because even though I was used to shouts and taunts, unwanted noises never got easier. Most things in life, I knew, never got easier.

            There was a car. Something pounded inside of me - it could have my heart, it could have been my fears trying to make me move. And, despite having enough time to get out of the way, I kept myself rooted to my chair, almost as if curious with the consequences.

            The window shattered in a million pieces with the impact. Uncountable shards of glass flew everywhere, piercing every inch of me, and there was something absolutely beautiful in the way that blood spurted to the surface of my skin.

            People were shouting around me, running in desperation, and I couldn't fathom _why_. _Why_ were they so loud? _Why_ were they so desperate? I was gasping for air, but it didn't feel bad per se. It felt kind of warm and I was choking on something and it could have been my own blood and I was _just ok_.

            The screams became ringing until they became nothing but peaceful silence. There were black spots in my visions, though I could still see the white ceiling while laying lifelessly on the ground. There was warming acceptance of my dying state.

            I woke up gagging on my own saliva. I coughed, reaching for nothing really, when a hand thrust a cup of whatever in my hand and I drank from it like a dying man. Maybe I was still dying. It felt like I was suffocating.

            "Are you ok?" A familiar voice whispered beside my futon.

            I blinked, trying to see better in the dark, and saw Ren's face centimeters away from mine. His blond hair was so dark that it could have passed as light brown in the darkness of his room, I absently noticed.

            I felt lightheaded.

            "Kumi?" He called, not adding any honorific for the first time ever.

            I nodded, even though I didn't even remember his question anymore.

            "I will call my Dad," Ren said, standing up.

            His words somehow made sense in my hazy brain and I grasped his loose pajamas, pulling him back down.

            "Ack!" was the sound he made, even though his fall was silent. We had spent too many weeks in the Academy learning how to fall properly to feel any real pain from surprise pulls like mine.

            I breathed deeply, forcing air into my lungs. My mind slowly wired itself to the real world.

            "Damn, you could have warned me," Ren complained, not sounding really indignant. He only looked worried, what with his tense jaw and narrowed pupil-less eyes. It was a look that didn't suit him.

            "Sorry," I murmured, managing not to sound too out of it.

            "Nah, never mind."

            We spent a couple of minutes in the dark. It was enough time for me to wonder about my sudden dream. I had had many dreams - or nightmares, really - about my old life. More of often than not, they were too blurry to give any useful information, so I contented myself with at least remembering the _Naruto_ series plot. It had been a long time since a dream came so clear to me.

            _Tina_ , I thought, testing the rediscovered name inside my mind. Sister had always been Sister in this life and suddenly having a name for her seemed disconcerting, as if it made her human whereas before she only had been a bad memory. I tried to recall her face, but it wasn't as easy as when I had been a newborn. Much like my own forgotten features, it may be for the best.

            "Are you feeling better?" Ren questioned me, interrupting the comfortable silence.

            "Yes. Thank you."

            He grinned at me, pulling the blankets back over his head, and I pretended not to notice the way his lips turned slightly downwards in a worried grimace.

            It was difficult to go back to oblivion. I worried about drowning in my blood every night during next week.

* * *

 

            I blamed my sleepy self for this stupid mistake.

            Sakumo-sensei had decided one week after all of our brothers went to Suna that we were too upset at their departure and needed cheering up. Chitarō - of course - had been the first to protest, because, according to him, his brother going to another country was the only way to have quiet in his house. I hadn't said anything, as my apartment _was_ too quiet without Minato around.

            (Much later, a cheerful Ren dragged me to his house.)

            We were shinobi, which meant that _needing to cheer up_ was a kind way of saying "Let's add something different in your training regimen." A couple hours later, we had gone off to our first C-ranked mission.

            It had been unexpectedly boring. The merchant we had been escorting only wanted to travel for a village two towns away from Konoha, so the short trip didn't get my blood pumping. I had been surprised over my desire to face a challenge, but I guess you can't be friends with a bunch of magical maniacs without somewhat becoming one yourself.

            A month after our first mission, we were sent on our second. Which, really, could have gone much worse, but could have much better.

            "Ren, duck!" I warned and he did just that, barely escaping the blade meant to decapitate his blond head.

            I entered the third stance of my Taijutsu style - sensei had been drilling our respective katas so hard in our heads that sometimes I couldn't help but be surprised at still _possessing_ our heads - and dug my left heel into the earthy ground, spinning my body toward the enemy. The momentum was a second wrong, which didn't give me as much strength as I was aiming for, but my hips turned around either way and my feet connected against the much taller opponent's abdomen.

            He flew back, startled, giving enough time for Chitarō to slash his back with a sharp flick of his katana. Our teacher, apparently finished with the three guys he had been fighting at once, came over to observe the harshly-breathing enemy.

            I flicked my eyes to our client - a tiny woman who sold impressive jewelry - and to three corpses a few meters away from us. I had never seen a dead person from so close before, which made me somewhat dizzy, but Ren's comforting hand patted between my shoulder blades and I took a deep breath.

            "Who sent you?" Sensei asked, crouching down in front of the last guy and giving his worst glare.

            The man, of average height and coloring, couldn't be more than a Genin that decided to go all missing-nin on his village. Most bandits in C-ranked missions were, after all. Still, something in his posture gave me the creeps.

            He spit and sensei dodged it with a mere turn of his neck. A kunai was put against the guy's neck and I gulped. Almost immediately, dark brown orbs turned away from my teacher and focused on me.

            Once again, the black-haired man spit, but it wasn't aimed at my teacher's face - the strangely huge ball of saliva came towards me. I took a step back, too surprise to react as the spit hit me squarely on the arm and a distinct _Crack!_ resounded in my ears.

            " _Kumi!"_ Someone shouted, but I was already in a world of pain.

            "What. Is. Your. Name?" Another's voice punctuated each word with a growl and I was almost sure it was my teacher and I couldn't breathe, breathe, _breathe_!

            I had never broken any bone, gotten burnt or needed stitches. In my first life, I avoided all kinds of physical exercises. In this life, I had learnt early on how to fall and how to take a hit. It was  given that, as a ninja, I'd get hurt someday, but the previous knowledge didn't make the pain any easier.

            I gritted my teeth, unwilling to open my eyes.

            "It's an open fracture," Ren's voice - I finally was clear-minded enough to hear them - said somewhere away from me.

            "Damn it," Chitarō cursed. I could tell he was the closest to me.

            The sound of a pointy object hitting its marks reached my ears - the disgusting thump of a blade going through flesh and the helpless gurgle of someone drowning on their blood.

            I felt myself sweating cold.

            Had it been me? Was this person drowning me? I had accepted the shards of glass cutting every inch of my skin before, but I wasn't ready to die in this life yet. I had many things to accomplish before passing away.

            My breath, which had been steadily becoming almost normal, quickened once again in my panic.

            "He's in shock!" A voice screamed in my right.

            "Wrap his arm with bandage. Setting the bone right will only be worse without a medic. We're still close enough to Konoha to go back and get him to the General Hospital."

            I tried to be assured by sensei's calm. I wasn't dying.

            _I wasn't dying_.

            I would see Minato a few weeks from now. I would eat many dinners with my friends. I would live enough time to hear Kakashi call me 'Onee-chan' again. I would get courageous enough to belong in this team. I would _live_.

            An arm went under my knees and another around my shoulders. For a few minutes, all was silent except for my harsh breathing and our client's surprised shrieks at our method of travelling.

            Somewhere along the way, the pain was too much to bear and I thankfully blacked out with no worries for the first time these past weeks.

* * *

 

            I woke up to a white ceiling.

            My heart sped up for the briefest moment - _there was a woman lying on this bed, she was beautiful and she was fading away like the winter does when the spring comes -_ before I reminded myself of the mission's last events.

            I was safe.

            My Mom wasn't here.

            A soft snore from my right caught my attention and I turned my eyes to find Ren slouched over my bed, his face marked from the sheets and his body awkwardly twisting on his chair. My panic finally slipped away.

            "How is your arm?" A familiar voice asked from the doorway.

            I looked up, observing as Chitarō entered the room with a tray of food. There were bags under his eyes, but he seemed otherwise fine.

            "Ah," I made, recalling his question, "It... doesn't hurt?"

            Chitarō grinned at my obvious confusion, "A medic-nin patched you up faster than we could blink. He said open fractures were common in our line of work and a couple of days resting would be enough."

            _Of course_ , I thought to myself, burying my surprise. In this world, you could heal broken bones and punctured skin wounds with a few minutes of patience and chakra. I wouldn't have to stay weeks with a sling or anything. I would be fit for duty in less than a week, which could mean the difference between life and death out in the field.

            "What about our client?" I questioned after a heartbeat of silence.

            Ren groaned beside me, but was still asleep. Chitarō pushed a chair to sit on my other side.

            "Sensei took her to the next town after he heard that you were going to be just fine. He should be presenting the mission report to Sandaime-sama by now."

            "How long was I blacked out?"

            Chitarō gave me a pair of chopsticks, indicating me the tray. I looked down, seeing a typical Japanese breakfast - white rice, broiled fish and miso soup. Surprisingly hungry for someone with my appetite, I dived in with gusto.

            "Since yesterday afternoon. It's now mid-morning, so you didn't miss too much. You can get out of here by the night if you're a good boy," Chitarō teased, seeming unusually good-humored.

            I nodded, grateful for the information and the food. Distractedly raising the chopsticks to my mouth, I analyzed the smooth patch of skin over my right arm. There wasn't even a scar from this horrible experience.

            "Ah," I made, suddenly, "Did you guys see why this guy's... _spit_ , I guess... managed to break my bone?"

            Chitarō's dark eyes narrowed for a second, before he sighed.

            "It must have been a bloodline, since he didn't seem strong enough to develop his own techniques, but as soon as it hit your skin, it turned to a gigantic rock. It caught us by surprise," he admitted, somewhat unwilling. "But it explained why he tried to spit on sensei's face before."

            I nodded in agreement. How strange. Spit that turned into rocks. When you thought you had seen everything in this world, there came a guy with the weirdest kekkei genkai ever. If the rock had been as huge as Chita made it seem, I wasn't taken back by my wound - a bony, tiny arm like mine would bend with too much force.

            Suddenly, a hand dropped over my head, too softly to cause any pain. Through my messy bangs - I probably was a mess myself - I looked up at Chitarō's blank expression.

            "When you went down, I was beside myself with worry," he said and, this time, it didn't seem hard to admit it at all. "I know Tsume, Kihito and Ren tease you all the time about being tiny and whatnot, but you always seem so... composed, I don't know. Like nothing would be able to take you down, you know?"

            I didn't, but I nodded anyway, because, for once, my friend looked like he needed to be comforted one instead of my messed-up self.

            "Kumi-chan!" A feminine voice called.

            Before I could even comprehend what was happening, the darkest mass of black hair was hugging me tightly.

            "Mikoto, you're going to strangle him to death," Tsume's familiar bark-like laugh reached my ears.

            The girl hugging me step back, a tint of pink on her embarrassed face. When the girls finally stood by my bedside, I noticed that while Tsume had grown some more, Mikoto had stayed practically the same height ever since we went out of the Academy. Until now, I hadn't had the chance to compare their height difference. However, both of them showed a greatly concerned expression, even if the rougher girl tried to hide it behind a grin.

            It made me realize how much all of us had grown since we became Genin a few months ago. Sakumo-sensei's desire for us to enter the next Chūnin Exams didn't seem so absurd now. Even if we were rookies, by the next year I felt as if we could be ready.

            "Did you guys get 'em good?" Kihito asked, throwing himself in a free chair. He wasn't wearing his hitai-ite today, which made his bangs fall all over his face and make him seem moodier than usual.

            I bit back a smile.

            Ren, who had woken up some time between Mikoto's shout and Tsume's warning, spoke up as if affronted with the of us 'not getting 'em good', "Of course we took them down! What do you take us for?"

            Nobody answered, because I was the first one of us to get myself landed in the hospital and this seemed to be a good enough reply.

            A knock - and someone was finally polite enough to knock - made us all turn to the door and observe as Sakumo-sensei entered the hospital room, somewhat startled by the number of people inside.

            He briefly nodded in a greeting and even though everybody took their time bowing back in respect to the teacher, his eyes had already moved to my tiny form over the bed.

            "Kumi-chan," he said, looking relieved by my obviously fine enough appearance. "I'm sorry for not being here when you woke up."

            I shook my head. My hair, usually bound back in a ponytail, flew everywhere with the movement.

            "No, it's okay," I assured him. "Chita said you were debriefing."

            "Yes. Well, Sandaime-sama wished for a good recovery."

            I smiled a little at the thoughtfulness of our aged leader. Ren shot up, already going back his cheery self when the evident danger and worry were gone, and practically skipped to our teacher.

            "Ne, ne, sensei, are we going on another mission soon?"

            Chitarō hit the back of his head, making the blond nurse it with a pout.

            "Are you stupid? Kumi isn't even out of the hospital and you're disturbing the peace?"

            "I don't mind, Chita," I told him, trying to instill peace. "Actually, I feel better with Ren back to normal. Silence is unbecoming of him."

            Everybody laughed, except for said blond. He simply stuck out his tongue at me.

            Sakumo-sensei came closer to my bed and laid one of his huge over my head, lightly ruffling my head and most probably making a worse mess of it.

            "We _do_ have a mission," he said and seeing Chitarō's disbelief stamped on his face, quickly explained, "It's two weeks from now, don't worry. Plenty of time for rest and light training."

            Kihito snickered beside me, coughing, "Mama bear."

            "Hah?" Chitarō made, challenging tilting his head sideways.

            Sensing the Nara's no non-sense attitude, Kihito threw his hands up non-threateningly. I smiled at the scene and Tsume exploded in laughter.

            "He scared you good, Monkey Boy!"

            "Shut up, Dog Breath!"

            As they bickered, I turned my eyes to my teacher.

            "Sakumo-sensei, what is our third mission about?"

            He looked down at me, reluctantly taking his gaze off the funny scene unfolding in front of us.

            "Huh? Ah, we'll be escorting three families of merchants to Suna to watch the finals of the Chūnin Exams. They gather lots of people from the nations, all interested in seeing the new talents."

            I frowned, "Isn't three families too much for a rookie team like ours? I-I mean," I stuttered, seeing his serious eyes and feeling bad for doubting my teammates' abilities, "We became much stronger with your help, sensei, but it's too soon... isn't it?"

            My eyes were closed in embarrassment so I didn't see when the silver-haired man openly started chuckling.

            "Actually, it will be a joint mission with Koharu-san's team. Team Four, yes?"

            I nodded, observing my friends easy smiles and friendly taunts at each other. Mikoto was partially hiding behind Ren in an attempt to escape Tsume's pleas of joining her in taking Kihito down. Chitarō looked exasperated in the middle of it all, much like the 'mama bear' the Sarutobi had called him a few minutes before.

            "Ne, Sakumo-sensei, I thought Utatane-sensei was Sandaime-sama's advisor. Do you know why she took a Genin team this year?" I pondered over the question I'd been asking myself ever since my friends were assigned to Team Four.

            My teacher smiled down at me, "Hmm. Well, who knows what goes through our leader's head when he divides the students into teams and gives them teacher?"

            But I couldn't help but feel that sensei _knew_ what went through our leader's head. One does not become so high in the village's reputation and hierarchy without getting to know the main cards' usual plays.

            I wasn't curious enough to keep pushing the matter, so I set it aside. I was still curious enough, however, to observe what would be of Team Four.

            In a way, it seemed like all of us were growing up too fast, which scared me a little. I wasn't ready to be sixteen again. My mind could replay the pain of glass piercing my skin too well for my taste.


	12. The Sand Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi is unpredictably dramatic and Minato is kind of stupid. Or a lot.

            Shikaku had one of the best minds in all of Konoha, which meant that learning, memorizing and rationalizing wasn't hard at all for him. This simple fact made it easy to comprehend why he vividly remembered his first encounter with his brother's littlest friend.

            He had heard about Namikaze Kumi before he saw him for the first time, of course. Minato - a friend he had made through Inoichi - wouldn't shut up about his baby brother. Apparently, the kid was the cutest kid ever. Minato's words.

            After Minato, Ren was the second one to comment about the little guy. Apparently, they had met in the park and the Yamanaka was anxious to be in the same class as him. Shikaku hadn't been able to see how - Minato, after all, had ranted enough about his baby brother's age for Shikaku to know he wasn't old enough to enter the Academy. Even his younger brother had only entered at seven. A few days later, however, Chitarō lazily told him about his new classmate.

            He had heard so many praises directed to the youngest Namikaze that he was surprised when he saw him for the first time. His mental image of him didn't connect at all with the real one.

            First of all, the kid was _short._ Shikaku was tall for his age, but this didn't change the fact that Namikaze Kumi looked like a four year old child. And, second, he could have been a girl for all that mattered. That coming from a guy who had _Inoichi_ as one of his best friends. Enough said.

            But, yeah, Minato had been right - he was the cutest kid ever.

            Much like his Father, Nara Shikato, Shikaku was an analyzer. His strongest trait was the capability of deconstructing people's personality, finding their strengths and weaknesses, and creating a plan around them. Truthfully speaking, the most competent one in direct fighting in this generation - and, really, all the others too - Ino-Shika-Chō was the Akimichi heir. Inoichi, of course, was the one who kept the team together.

            With such a great mind and an ability to observe and learn like his, Shikaku was used to leaving the speaking to his friends and simply falling into the shadows and _watching_. During his Academy days - when everything had been much less troublesome - he and his friends occasionally met up with the younger kids. Most of the time, he yawned on the sidelines and kept careful watch over his brother's friends.

            In a way, his brother's group of friends had been exactly what he expected. There was Ren, who, much like his older brother, managed to keep everyone together despite their absolutely different personalities. Inuzuka Tsume and Sarutobi Kihito were a duo that should've gone very wrong, what with their strong-headed stubbornness, but quiet Uchiha Mikoto was there to calm the hotheads. And, at last, there was the much commented Namikaze Kumi, who at times appeared too mature and too silent for someone his age and size.

            None of them made sense sometimes and, perhaps, none of them would be great alone, but when the six children remained together for the years to come, Shikaku could almost see the brilliance of their future.

            Which brought him back to tiny Kumi.

            Shikaku had spent hours of boredom pondering over the little guy, thinking about why he seemed so _ingenious_ at times and so dull at others. He had learnt how to classify people into different categories with the current head of the Yamanaka clan and had been doing so for a long time. No one was the same, but no one was absurdly odd enough to be granted an special pedestal.

            Except for petit Namikaze Kumi, apparently.

            His brother, for example, was the usual lazy Nara with a thin layer of determination that would keep him alive in the next years. Minato, too, was simple to classify - he was the gentle genius kid of their generation, the one that _probably_ wouldn't crumble under pressure and still save the day. Kumi, on the other hand, wasn't consistent enough to put on one category.

            He was quiet and shy, sure, but it never kept him from going and getting what he wanted. Chitarō had spent countless hours commenting about how the kid was searching for a Taijutsu style and, weeks later, mastering said katas. Shikaku himself had witnessed how much of a crybaby Kumi could be, though he always had his reasons to shed tears. He was loud in his opinions, but never in his voice. His peers seemed to see him as prodigious, but he didn't seem to view himself as more than 'could still be better'. He was sassy, even though no one but Shikaku appeared to notice it.

            It drove Shikaku crazy how a person could be so many things and still not completely _be_ those things. It didn't make any sense when he first started analyzing and certainly did not make any more sense years later.

            He couldn't understand this offbeat kind of shyness, this unusual way of portraying himself - almost as if Kumi desperately wanted to be here, but chose to hide away instead. He simply couldn't _comprehend_ how someone managed to be so obviously brilliant while being so genuinely oblivious about how other people saw him as. And, finally, he couldn't follow how someone could be so innocent and so somber at the same time.

            In a way, Minato's cute sweetheart, Namikaze Kumi, had offered one of the hardest puzzles to solve as of yet and Nara Shikaku had always loved puzzles.

* * *

 

_Kumi,_

_I hope your first mission outside the Fire Country goes well! I'm hooting for you, sweetheart!_

_Love,_

_Mommy_

_P.S: Do remember to take sunscreen with you if you're going to Iwa or Suna. I remember when your father came back home full of blisters because he was stubborn to listen to me._

* * *

 

            Suna was _hot_.

            I had been British in my previous life, which had never seemed to matter much, except for some horribly melting days in Konoha. In the middle of the roasting desert, however, I felt as if my limbs were slowly merging with the scorching sand and staying behind like a bunch of corpses.

            "Please, tell me we are close," Ren muttered beside me. With his rosy cheeks and sweaty brows, he looked as bad as I doubtlessly did. Perhaps better, for his skin was naturally tanned instead of ivory.

            Sakumo-sensei laughed. The front of his hair was matted with sweat and he was wearing short-sleeves instead of the usual blue hoodie-like shirt Jōnin wore, but, except for these details, he seemed completely fine. Damn experienced ninjas.

            "If we keep this pace up and there's no sandstorm, we'll probably arrive in three hours or four. Otherwise, we might stop when it becomes too dark and start again tomorrow morning."

            Chitarō groaned on the other side of me, sounding pained. I could almost hear his muscles protesting with each step. Frankly speaking, the only reason I managed to keep going was because of sensei hellish training - otherwise, I'd have stayed behind two days of travel earlier. In our team, my stamina was worse than even a lazy Nara's one.

            "Try not to look so tired and defeated," Sakumo-sensei lightly reprimanded. With his chin, he pointed at the three families following us. "They are counting on us to protect them."

            "Hai, sensei," we dutifully nodded, managing not to sound too exhausted.

            I briefly turned my neck  to look over my shoulders, but there were too many taller people behind me to catch Team Four's expressions. I could imagine Tsume and Kihito holding their complaints in front of Utatane-sensei's scary eyes. The woman was a tyrant in training and education, seriously. It made me glad that my sensei knew how and when to relax sometimes.

            "Mikoto-chan is probably as red in the face as you," Ren teased me, but it was too hot for a real laugh make its way through his teeth.

            I crossed my arms over my chest, "I'm sure I'm not _so_ red."

            Sakumo-sensei and Chitarō took their time sending me a look explaining how rosy a tone of skin like mine could get. I ducked my head, looking away. A gentle hand patted my naked nape, right under my high ponytail, and I drew comfort from Chita's usual form of consolation. My forehead protector was, for once, in its designated place instead of around my neck, protecting my head from the sun.

            Almost an hour later, we stopped for a couple of minutes to let our civilian clients rest - or, at least, that's what sensei said. If anything, it felt as if the _coffee break_ was for us. I couldn't point out which Genin was more sweaty.

            "Hey," a voice called and I looked up, squinting my eyes to see, through the sunlight, the figure towering over me.

            I got up from my crouching position, thinking that maybe Ojiro-kun, one of the oldest kids in the group, had gotten thirsty and drank all his water like the much younger Kimi-chan. I was already dreading having to share my minimal water when he spoke up again.

            "You're Namikaze Kumi-chan, right?" He asked, but didn't seem really confused about it. "A friend of mine told me about you. He said you're the cutes-"

            But whatever he was meaning to say was cut off by Ren's quick interruption, "Kumi-chan is pretty tired from walking, you know, you should let him rest instead of pestering him with questions."

            The Ojiro kid looked so offended - no doubt due to being spoiled by his rich parents - that I entered the conversation, trying to calm everybody down. It would do no good to have the merchants angry at us for 'mistreating' one of their kids.

            "Ren didn't to sound so rude, Ojiro-kun. It's just that sometimes he speaks before thinking things through. Isn't it, Ren?" I turned to my friend, giving him my friendliest smile.

            I wasn't going to hear sensei ranting about being polite to our clients and whatnot just because Ren had made one mistake.

            "Oh, I'm sure he meant every word he said," Chitarō murmured a few paces behind me. Thankfully, Ojiro hadn't been trained to spot the faintest sounds like us and didn't seem to hear it.

            The dark-haired civilian snorted as undignified as possible, turning on his heels, sending the damn sand everywhere and marching off to his parents. We had been told he was more or less our age, but it was easy to forget that shinobi children matured much more quickly.

            Sakumo-sensei softly hit the back of Ren's head, and, after throwing a disapproving glance at Chitarō, said, "How many times have I told you to control that tongue of yours? That's exactly why Chitarō and Kumi-chan are the team leaders in simulation more times than you."

            Ren whined an undistinguished sound and pouted the biggest pout of all History.

            I rolled my eyes. And _I_ was the crybaby.

* * *

 

            Our arrival took longer than expected due to a sudden sandstorm - must have been sensei's jinx - and we barely made it to the third round of the Exams, managing to reach the hidden village just in the morning of the finals.

            Our clients paid us the half that was missing from the mission - the other part had been delivered back in Konoha - and barely bade us goodbye. I rolled my eyes. Some merchants were just too annoying and rude to bother.

            "We should meet up with Nii-san," Ren practically bounced on his heels, talking excitedly. "He's probably shitting himself in fear, so I wanted to wish him good luck."

            Tsume crossed her arms, "Like hell we're gonna waster our time finding 'em. I'm hungry and we only have a couple of hours 'til the start. You can wish him good luck after the Exam."

            All of us paused. Seeing our disbelieving looks and raised eyebrows, the Inuzuka heir huffed.

            "He'll need any good wishes to be chosen as a Chūnin, trust me."

            "Hey, what does that mean?"

            "No fighting, kids," Sakumo-sensei warned, coming back to us with Utatane-sensei. The Hokage advisor was standing with the sternest look on her face I'd ever seen.

            She glanced at all of us before speaking up, "I have a meeting with the village Elders, which means I cannot spend my time making sure you behave yourselves like civilized Konoha citizens. Team Four!"

            "Hai!"

            "Try not to make fool of yourselves bickering like children in front of so many foreign shinobi. Sakumo-san will be your team leader while I am away. Be back at hotel no later than eight. Dismissed."

            "Yes, Koharu-sensei," Team Four bowed back. I was surprised to see Kihito and Tsume so well-behaved. Mikoto simply seemed uneasy at the idea of being without her Jōnin-sensei in a different country.

            I sent a soft smile at her, trying not to show that I too was nervous.

            "Let's eat, folks!" Tsume shouted, throwing her arms up. A couple of civilians glanced at us warily, eyeing Kuromaru, who had grown a lot since the first time I saw him and had managed to acquire the fiercest pair of fangs I'd ever seen.

            Kihito groaned, "Did you just calls us _folks_?"

            "Shut up. Monkey Boy."

            It was Chitarō's turn to groan.

            "How are they still alive after so many months in the same team?" He asked no one in particular.

            I shrugged, observing the usual bickering. Utatane-sensei must be feeling ashamed in her heart somewhere in Suna. It was peaceful, in a way, to see my friends behaving like themselves despite not being our home village. Almost  as if nothing could affect them.

            It seemed like even I could draw this reckless bravery from them.

            "Nervous for Minato?" Ren skipped to Chitarō and me.

            I tried to smile back, but all that came out was a wince. Ren patted my back sympathetically.

            "You know he'll make it," he assured me.

            I nodded, because a large part of me agreed with his statement. Minato was one of the strongest Genin of this generation. Perhaps I was little biased about it, since he was my brother and I knew what would come off him in the future, but it didn't change the facts. Minato was incredibly talented and could probably defeat most opponents in this tournament.

* * *

 

            Despite the confidence in my mind that Minato would make it, I - like always - was shaking like a failing leaf while waiting for my brother's turn a few hours later. I couldn't even see him or his state of mind, since all Genins participating were sent to waiting rooms separated by village. Apparently, Suna didn't let the participants watch each others' matches, in case one would advance and fight the other. It was just like them, too, to worry about secrecy and stealth.

            I observed as a bulky Iwa Genin fight against a tiny girl from Ame. Their height difference was ridiculous, despite it looking like they were the same age. I winced at a particularly rough punch delivered right at the stomach of the Ame girl and she was sent flying.

            "Wow, it's almost unfair how obviously stronger the Iwa guy is," Ren whistled beside me, sounding impressed. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, analyzing the older boy thoroughly, even though he sounded laidback.

            Mikoto's fingers were anxiously twitching over her lap. She was never one for meaningless fights, even more than me. It didn't keep her from doing her job, of course, but it still manage to upset her how soft her personality was sometimes. Her little brother was always taunting her about it, after all.

            A shout from the audience interrupted my musings. I looked down to see the Iwa Genin staring stupidly at nothing in the middle of the arena. The Ame girl was a few meters away, her hands in the position of the Ram hand seal. I was aware that it would be stupid to release my chakra field simply to try and confirm if a genjutsu was in place, so I merely waited for the proctor's call.

            "Winner: Heisui Chiname," the Suna-nin announced as unenthusiastically as possible. Nevertheless, a lot of people started clapping, excitedly commenting about the vicious fight.

            I frowned as the Ame girl walked out of the arena. Her hair was a common shade of brown, but her hazel eyes were startlingly huge and her face were strangely familiar, which made no sense whatsoever. I had never gone to Amekagure and had never seen a Rain ninja in Konoha either. Even my _Naruto_ memories were limited - I could only remember Hanzō, Konan, Yahiko and Nagato. Well, there was Pain too, but considering he wasn't really a person, I-

            I totally stopped on my tracks. This girl - Heisui Chiname, was it? - her face looked familiar, because I had seen it before, only with piercings covering its cheeks and shockingly-orange hair covering its head. Her face belonged to one of the Six Paths of Pain. I couldn't remember which one, but there had been a tiny woman among the paths, hadn't it?

            I paused, trying to calm myself and wondering why I was getting unsettled. This woman couldn't be one of the Six Paths of Pain. She was at least seventeen, going by her appearance, and would be too old to be fit the image I had from the series. Probably the Path's mother, then.

            I was still fidgety at the uneasiness her presence made me feel. I had been seeing canon characters for a long time now, some even directly related to the most important pieces of Konoha's future, but someone from another village left me feeling absolutely lost. It was easy to pretend the only thing that would - _could_ \- go wrong in the future was the Kyūbi attack, but the Ame girl's unexpected relation to a canon character reminded me of something important: this world was all messed up and many things were going to go downhill from here on.

            "Kumi-chan?" Mikoto's voice hesitantly brought me out of my deep thoughts.

            I looked up from my lap, snapping back to reality. Another fight had obviously ended, going by the audience's cheers, and I had been distracted the entire time.

            "Sorry, Ko-chan," I smiled apologetically at her. "I wasn't paying attention."

            She grabbed my hand and I was used to the slightly bigger size of it by now.

            "Minato-san is going to do well," she assured me.

            Surely enough, when my brother's fight came, he calmly entered the arena. He hadn't changed much in the two months away. I could see a few centimeters extra on him and his bangs had grown longer, but he was essentially the same, which eased my mind a little. My brother was okay.

            His first fight - because there was no doubt he'd advance - was against a Kumogakure boy who looked surprisingly young. Both of them entered their own stances and the proctor declared the beginning of the match.

            Tsume raised her head, concentrating on whatever she was listening to with her incredible hearing.

            "Huh," she made, managing to sound neither excited nor worried, "Apparently, this brat is the youngest participant in the current Exam."

            Kihito frowned, observing the boy, who looked my age, actually, more attentively. Minato ducked a kick and went in for a punch. I wasn't the greatest at Taijutsu, but even I could see that the advantage wasn't with the younger boy.

            "He's pretty good, I'll give him that," the Sandaime's oldest son admitted, "But not good enough to defeat Minato. He still has a long way to go."

            And he was right. When my brother started to use one of his Wind jutsus - his repertoire had grown ever since Jiraiya became his sensei, but he still focused on Ninjutsu less than I did - the other boy stood no chance. The Kumo Genin was a Lightning type, which was weak against Wind in normal circumstances.

             I watched the familiar pattern of Minato's katas and smiled when I saw a specific sequence of hand-seals.

            "Fūton: Daitoppa!" Minato inhaled deeply, before expelling a giant gust of wind from his mouth. It was one the most basic Wind techniques, the Great Breakthrough.

            The Kumo shinobi was sent flying against the walls. For a moment, I thought he'd get back up and continue fighting, but his body wobbled and he fell face-first to the ground.

            "Winner: Namikaze Minato," the proctor declared. Said Genin bowed briefly to the audience, silently thanking them for their whistles and clapping.

            "Woohoo!" Ren cheered beside me, clapping madly. I smiled to myself, happy for my brother's victory.

            The matches kept on going. A preliminary round had been done to eliminate the excessive number of Genin, but there were still an unusually huge group to fight in the finals. From Konoha, there were two Genin whose name I didn't know - probably had graduated a couple of classes before my brother's generation - and a few familiars faces.

            Yamanaka Inoichi lost against a Kiri-nin after spending too much chakra. Akimichi Chōza had been knocked out during the preliminaries. Nara Shikaku fought the shortest match ever without spending more than full cup worth of chakra. Aburame Shibi impressively managed to scare his opponent to tears (long story). Hyūga Hiashi and Hizashi were pitched against each other and, after a brief tense silence in the beginning of the match, ended up tying. Uchiha Fugaku had been unable to fight due a serious injury from his preliminary match. And, finally, there was brash Uzumaki Kushina, who managed to win against a Iwa-nin, but not without getting a broken arm and countless scrapes.

            All in all, I was impressed with Konoha's future Jōnins. Technically speaking, Konoha suffered more losses (and a tie) than wins, but the showcase was amazing. Most Genin tended to _stay_ Genin after their first Chūnin Exams - actually, young Chūnins came in times of war. Usually, you'd see sixteen-year-old Genins around the village in times of peace. Kakashi's generation was a glaring exception to the rule.

            "I grabbed a paper with the order," Tsume said, running back to the place we were sitting. There had been a pause between the next fights to give sometime for recover. Medic-nins weren't allowed inside the waiting rooms, but rolls of bandages were distributed to the Genins.

            Chitarō glanced over her shoulder, looking mildly interested. I smiled behind my hand - for all that he said about his brother, Chita sure cared a lot about Shikaku.

            "Uh, Shika is fighting the Ame girl - what was her name again?" Ren asked me, trusting my usually good memory.

            "Heisui Chiname," I promptly answered, without having to ponder over it too much. I had always had a great memory and way of learning things through books, but Suzaku-sensei had been honing this ability ever since he noticed it. According to him, one of the greatest assets a Fūinjutsu could have is the capacity of visualizing entire seals and projecting them in the air with chakra. For that you needed great control of said energy and amazing memory.

            Lightly reprimanding myself for getting distracted so many times in only two hours, I tried to pay attention to my friends' conversation.

            "That Ame girl is totally done for," Ren insisted.

            Tsume shook her head and Kuromaru barked in agreement with his partner.

            "No way. Short-stuff will trap Shikaku in a Genjutsu faster than he can say Kagemane no Jutsu," she argued. You'd think it was weird for a Genin of Konoha to defend another village's Genin ability, but ninja children were inclined to analyze things unbiased. Or, at least, they were supposed to.

            According to our Academy teachers, it was supposed to help us in the long run. Then, again, assassination techniques were to do so too - and no sane person would have taught ten-year-old children how to kill people silently in my old world.

            "Tch, Aniki will win," Chitarō said from the chair in front of me. He looked somewhat pissed off.

            Uh-oh.

             "Why don't we simply watch and see the results for ourselves?" Sakumo-sensei finally spoke up, sounding exasperated. Despite his easygoing personality, he was the most mature out all of us.

            Kihito snorted, "As if Tsume could patiently wait for anything."

            Mikoto sighed, but it sounded fondly even to me. I sent her a smile, which was returned with a soft laugh. She really was a sweetheart. I certainly agreed with Chitarō - how had her team not manage to kill themselves was a mystery.

            "Shh," Ren made, waving a hand at the bickering duo. "Shibi-san's match is about to start."

            Aburame Shibi was a weird guy, I decided. I had seen him before, of course, as the Academy wasn't all that big, but had never talked to him. Since he was in Kushina's team, I didn't see him all that much in the village either, for I tended to stay away from the redhead.

            Nevertheless, I was inspired by the way he ruthlessly managed to defeat his opponent - a girl from Kusagakure - and walk away with no more than a few scratches. He seemed calm and controlled, and I wished I could have this kind of personality. I'd probably do a lot better in my fights if I didn't hesitate around my enemies. Actually, hadn't Shikaku-san told me exactly this a couple of months ago?

            "Next match: Nara Shikaku versus Heisui Chiname," the proctor called.

            Tsume's predictions turned out wrong, which didn't surprise me one bit. Not because she was bad at seeing outcomes - though she wasn't great, really - but because there was no way Shikaku-san would lose. The guy was the scary genius type. Seriously.

            The next match was a drawn out one, quickly boring the audience. It was a Takigakure boy against one of the Konoha-nin whose name I didn't know. The girl from our village won, but just by a thread. There was no way she'd win her next fight in the state she was.

            "Next match," the proctor called, "Namikaze Minato versus Uzumaki Kushina."

            _No_.

            _No_ , the thought repeated itself inside my head, as if surprised. This couldn't be right. I hadn't looked at the paper Tsume brought with the fighting order, though I should have. Maybe, then, I wouldn't be so startled by this turn of events.

            A sudden coldness seeped inside me when I saw Minato's frame entering the arena. He was in almost perfect condition even though his fight against the young Kumo boy had fried the sleeves of his shirt. Kushina, on the other hand, had her arm in a makeshift sling made out of bandages and a hair ribbon. She was in no condition to fight - much less against my brother - but there was no way the stubborn, motor-mouth girl would give up.

            Which was exactly the problem.

            I knew what was going to happen before Minato opened his mouth.

            _Don't do this_ , I wanted to say. I stayed in perfect silence.

            "I, Namikaze Minato, give up on this match," he said to the proctor, who raised unimpressed eyebrows. "Frankly, I'm spent and it would be reckless of me to charge in a battle right now."

            I could tell by the Suna-nin that he didn't believe one bit of my brother's words, but he still called out, "Winner: Uzumaki Kushina."

            Inside my numb mind, I could see everything. My friends' surprised stares, my teacher's analytic eyes, the proctor's silent reprimand, even my brother's calm expression. But, most of all, I could see Kushina's face twisted in a ugly grimace, as if she was shocked and angry all in the same package.

            For some reason, her expression made me even more furious at the situation.

            I wanted to get up and march to Konoha's waiting room, but a rational part of my brain argued that there was no way they'd let me enter in the middle of the Exams. I waited surprisingly patient for the end of the matches. Shibi easily won against the wounded Konoha-nin and Kushina's simple loss against Shikaku left a bitter taste in my mouth.

            My friends politely clapped when Aburame Shibi ended up winning against Shikaku due to greater stamina and chakra pools, but I couldn't will myself to bring my hands together in a clap. I couldn't will myself to do anything.

            "Now can I see my brother?" Ren petulantly asked Tsume, who grabbed his head to give him a good noogie at his sass.      

            Chitarō's hand fell over my hair, catching my attention.

            "Are you okay?" He questioned me, sounding uncharacteristically kind. Chitarō was perceptive, but he never dropped his voice to a gentle tone. It was too troublesome.

            I nodded, even though I was not. There was no way I was okay after such a show of stupidity from my own brother.

            We walked toward the waiting room with no hurry, sensei quietly trailing behind us. We met along the way with the Genin who had lost in the preliminaries and hadn't been allowed inside Konoha's room.

            "Hello, Kumi-chan," Chōza greeted me warmly when he saw me walking down the corridor with my group.

            I waved at him. I was feeling strangely numb.

            The waiting room wasn't silent, as I had expected, when we arrived. The Konoha ninjas whose names I didn't know - and had finally been recognized as Umino Tetsuo (wasn't that surprising?) and Shinji Aiko - were carefully away from the middle of the room, where a discussion was taking place. Inoichi and Hizashi were busy holding an angry Kushina from punching my brother.

            "You had no right to give up like a pansy!" She was saying, her hair truly moving behind her in her anger.

            My brother stood no even two meters in front of her, calmly observing her features twisted in irritation. His lack of action made me annoyed.

            "I was feeling well enough to fight against you," Kushina protested, trying to ease her way out of Hizashi and Inoichi's arms.

            _No, you weren't_ , I told myself. Even now, her broken arm was simply painful to look at, especially after my own open fracture.

            I glanced around the room. There was Jiraiya leaning against one of the walls, seemingly bored out of his mind. Another teacher - Kushina, Shibi and Hizashi's, if I wasn't mistaken - seemed ready to intervene; his onyx eyes and dark hair gave me no doubt that he was an Uchiha. Ino-Shika-Chō's sensei, on the other hand, looked amused at the scene as well as Umino-san and Shinji-san's sensei.

            "I think that's enough, Kushina," the Uchiha teacher reprimanded his student.

            "But Yashiro-sensei," Kushina protested and her stubbornness, not for the first time, made me annoyed.

            Kurama Murakumo-san, who I now identified as future head of the Kurama clan, sighed as if disappointed at the loss of his source of fun. I thought about glaring at him - _there was no way this scene was funny -_ but it wasn't his fault, in the end. It would irrational to blame him for Kushina's reckless behavior and Minato's complete idiocy.

             My brother finally seemed to noticed he had an audience. His eyes flew from person to person until they landed on me. A smile bloomed on his face, immediately fading at my serious face.

            "Mii-chan," he came in my direction, his arms open and ready to embrace me.

            And wasn't it _so-damn-stupid_ that a part of me wanted nothing more than receive his hug and not be mad at his stupidity?

            I stayed right where I was and my brother eventually stopped coming in my direction. I opened my mouth to tell him everything on my mind, perhaps even shout like Kushina had done, but I closed it.

            I wanted to say that the Chūnin Exams were important for both of us, because a Chūnin earns a lot more than a Genin and we paid our own bills. I wanted to say that he was my hero inside my own mind and he had utterly disappointed by giving up because of a girl - because of _Kushina_. I wanted to say that he was stupid and that was all he'd ever be.

            I wanted to say many things, but I didn't say anything. I turned on my heels and left the room. If I stayed, I was sure I'd start crying.

            I did turn out to be the crybaby, after all.


	13. The Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Minato's teammates and Kumi's teammates were getting way too tired of the brothers' bullshit.

            "It'd probably work better with a square here," Suzaku-sensei said, pointing at the end of my seal.

            I creased my lips, pensive. Seals could be drawn in any shape or way - most were a circle or a swirl, since the Uzumaki were famous for creating the majority of seals used in day-to-day life. They could also come as straight-lines, wavy lines, triangles and any form really, as long as they worked and were balanced. I usually wrote them in a line or two, using the mirror technique, which meant that in the middle of them I repeated the same symbols backwards to create harmony.

            This one, however, was a squared seal - four lines drawn with the same symbols positioned in a way to form said polygon. I didn't like this type of seal much, but they commonly worked best for Wind-based necessities.

            I bit my lower lip, observing the consecutive strokes and deciding that a square at the end wasn't what I needed. I told my teacher as much.

            He inhaled slowly, letting his dark eyes roam over the paper on the table in front of us.

            "But you certainly need another form in the lines," he advised, "It'll never work this way."

            I sighed, frustrated. This much I knew. I've meaning to create a seal ever since sensei decided, one month ago or so, that I had learn enough to start with my own style. Usually, it'd take longer to reach this stage of Fūinjutsu, he had said, but my own naturalness with the art made it easy for me to understand the complex concepts. I had been both excited and wary of my new task - on one hand, I loved sealing and puzzles, so constructing my own seemed amazing; however, I was afraid of never managing to think of something useful enough.

            Surprisingly enough, the idea for my first seal had come from two occasions. The first one was my necessity to dodge Chitarō's sword slashes - he'd been getting _better and better_ under Sakumo-sensei's careful instruction and it'd been getting _harder and harder_ to get close enough to him during a Taijutsu-only spar. He was probably the most active Nara out there. The second occasion was when I sat in the grass one evening, bone-tired from training, and noticed how effortlessly a grasshopper could jump away from predators.

            I had liked the idea of being able to jump away so fast and had commented about it to Suzaku-sensei. It had taken me a couple of weeks to think over how I'd able to use such a seal in battle and another few days how to even start drawing this. I had figured that one of my dual elements, Wind, would make it easier, so I added said element to my strokes. Fūinjutsu wasn't an exactly precise art, there wasn't an alphabet made for it or anything, so there wasn't a _Jump_ command. It had to be made from scratch and it was even harder than it sounded.

            I was suddenly struck by an idea.

            "What if I put a gravity seal here," I pointed to the right end of my basic line, "Followed by a theta?"

            I'd surprised to discover that some Greek letters existed in this world and were used in Fūinjutsu. Of all things to be encountered in the _Naruto_ world, I certainly hadn't expected the Greek alphabet.

            Suzaku rotated the paper, analyzing how my suggestion would go.

            "It could work," he replied, sounding smug for some reason. "A basic gravity seal can be reduced to a simple symbol nowadays and theta is usually used as a nullifying sign. Just make sure to put a bar between the theta and the Wind part of the seal and I'm pretty sure it'd go right."

            I smiled so wide that I felt my cheeks hurting. I dipped my brush in the inkpot, carefully but quickly stroking the paper. I repeated the lines four times, rotating the paper as I wrote, before ending with a perfect square of what would be squiggles to anyone who wasn't versed in the sealing art.

            Suzaku-sensei chuckled at my enthusiasm. Ruffling my hair and effectively messing my usual ponytail, he stood up, heading for the back door. I huffed, letting the ribbon fall off my hair, but I wasn't really annoyed at his gesture.

            I arrived at the backyard with a bounce in my step, practically trembling with excitement. It was so unlike me to be so agitated, especially in the last few months, that Suzaku-sensei put his hand over my shoulder.

            "Okay, sugar-high, calm down or it won't work _at all_ ," he joked. 

            I nodded dutifully, still smiling. I bent down, applying the small piece of paper with the seal on the soles of my footwear with a small burst of chakra - I made sure not to let any of said energy go through the seal before it was rightfully glued to my feet or I'd have probably been blasted off the ground.

            I took a deep breath, suddenly nervous at the success of my first seal. I wanted it to work. I had spent years studying for this moments and would perhaps feel like a complete failure if it didn't work like I wanted. My team had been cheering for me this entire month, saying that I would eventually work out what I wished for.

            Like a well-practiced motion, I effortlessly guided my chakra downwards. I knew it worked even before I was thrown at least three meters up.

            "Woah!" I let out, surprised at the height of my jump, but being trained enough to land with a mere buckle of my knees.

            I felt a hand fall over my head. Managing to look up through its fingers, I saw my Fūinjutsu teacher giving me the biggest grin I'd ever seen on his face ever since I met him.

            "I'm proud of you, kid," he told me and I realized why he had sounded smug before. I bit back a laugh. Of course a Nara would feel smug after being part of someone's education. For a bunch of laidback guys, they sure were one of the smuggest clan in this village.

            I clenched my hands, feeling like I'd burst from happiness if I stayed too still. For the first time ever, I wanted to put my shyness aside and shout to everybody about my accomplishment. I had never felt so good about something I had made myself.

            "Why don't we finish for today?" Suzaku-sensei suggested, seeing that I wasn't paying any attention to him. "Go tell your friends and don't come back here until you've found an opening for this seal during a spar, okay?"

            I smiled at his subtle way of saying to rest for a few days. I nodded and sprinted away. I couldn't stop grinning like a maniac, which I'm sure scared some passing Naras. They were used to seeing me in their compound, but usually as a pretty quiet figure. I was running so fast I almost bumped into a much taller person.

            "Sorry," I said, trying to take the grin off my face to look sincere enough about my mistake.

            "What got you so happy?" A familiar voice questioned.

            I looked up, surprised to notice that it was Shikaku. The Nara heir was wearing his Chūnin vest - the only one from his team to receive one in this last Exam _and wasn't that nostalgic?_ \- and seemed pretty relaxed with his hands deep in his pockets.

            "Ah," I stammered over my own excitement. _Silly me_ , I scolded myself. _I'm not a little kid. Technically speaking, I'm older than Shikaku._ "I finally managed to make my first seal work."

            Dark eyes widened almost imperceptibly and a soft smirk, if such a thing could exist, made its way to the Nara heir's face.         

            "Is that so? Congratulations."

            I grinned in thanks and waved goodbye, feeling to cheerful to bother being my usual polite self. I wasn't taken back by Shikaku's lack of questions about my new seal. Normal people would hear the news and ask first-thing-first what was my seal's use. But Shikaku wasn't your usual guy. It was like the guy knew everything sometimes, seriously.

            I shrugged mentally. My best friend's older brother had always been a mysterious figure, after all. I let the observation fly out of my mind. Barely containing my urge to jump everywhere, I ran as fast as I could to my team's usual training ground.

            I couldn't wait to tell them the good news.

* * *

 

            I was still buzzing from excitement when I arrived home hours later. The one-bedroom apartment was dark and silent, as always. It had been like this for a few months now.

            Suddenly feeling drained, I took off my shoes and put them away. I didn't feel like celebrating anymore.

            "Kumi?" Minato's voice called from the end of the hallway and his figure made its way to the entry.

            I looked up, realizing that I'd been in the doorway daydreaming for a couple of minutes. My brother had the same face from months ago, but I didn't pay as much attention to it as I did before, so it was always a surprising occasion when I noticed how bright his eyes were or how yellow his hair seemed.

            Just thinking like that made me want to cry my eyes out.

            "Good night, Onii-san," I said, giving him a soft smile.

            Minato smiled back, though the confusion never left his eyes. He'd been confused for a long time now, I mused. I'd never told him the reason why I left the waiting room during the Chūnin Exams and only went back to the hotel hours later. No, I had been my usual self - too coward to speak up my thoughts. Like always, the words stopped in my throat and were bitterly gulped down.

            It was December 4th and I'd be spending my birthdays with such horrible feelings if I didn't talk to him soon.  The notion seemed unbearable, but I started sweating just thinking about what to say.

            I was a scaredy-cat. I had known this for a long time, but I thought that I had somehow gotten better. I thought I could manage silly struggles like this. I was wrong. I was always wrong.

            "Uh, did something interesting happen today?" Minato asked, scratching his nape awkwardly. The gesture reminded me of his future son, which made me stop in my tracks.

            I glanced away for a moment, enough to leave my brother feeling even more awkward. He sighed, saying one thing or another about dinner being in the fridge and going back to our room. He'd be sleeping by the time I arrived, I was sure, because it had been this way since the Exams.

            In a way, I wondered while heating up the pre-cooked dinner, it was all my fault. Minato had no way of knowing what was wrong with me, why _the hell_ his little brother had suddenly stopped talking to him all the time. I felt guilty about it every time I glanced at his disappointed expression.

            A childish side of me, however, justified my silence as _his_ fault. Minato had a sharp mind and noticed things other people did not. Why couldn't he just realize my dislike for Kushina? Why couldn't he noticed how much she was messing with our routine? _Why the hell couldn't he know she was the cause of his death?_

            And that's where I knew I was being ridiculous. My brother had no way of knowing what the future held for him. I did, but I'd never tell a soul about my knowledge, because I was afraid of being seen as a crazy or sick. Because I was a coward. Because I was stupid. And I kept drowning on my feelings for months now, asking myself _Why me?_ like a victim that never tired of being dramatic.

            Mother died. Father beat me up. Sister Tina was loveless. Bullies were my background music. And the world ended in pain and started with expectations again. Daddy died. Mom died. Brother would die.

            It seemed laughably easy to slip into the victim's position. It was all too simple to say _Hey, I didn't ask for this_ and conform myself to the written future. I wasn't perfect - nobody was, but people around me had made me acutely aware of said fact the first time around.

            I missed the times when I was younger in this lifetime, I realized. I had hated my first time from Mother's death to the end and had hated the lack of happy memories or good feelings. But I loved the first years in this life. When I had been too scared to go out and play with other kids, because I remembered how cruel they could become, and Minato had stayed at home with me. I missed his attention and care.

            I really missed my older brother.

            If this had been one of my old books, Minato's voice would call me from the doorway, anxiously asking why I was crying over my plate. I was left alone with my tears.

* * *

 

            "Where are you guys taking me?" I asked, puzzled.

            Ren was insistently pulling me by my wrist and Chitarō walked a safe distance behind us, as if to guarantee I'd keep going to wherever they were taking me.

            "We've all had enough of this cold war!" He said, sounding indignant.

            I blinked, wondering what he was annoyed at. Most of the time, my blond best friend was calm and friendly - right then, he seemed anything but.

            "Huh?" I questioned, eloquently.

            Chitarō put his face next to mine, rolling his dark eyes.

            "We're tired of your and Minato's fight. The poor guy doesn't even know why you've been ignoring him for so many months," he lightly scolded.

            I felt my cheeks heating up and looked away. I had never said my behavior was exemplar.

            "Okay, but where are you taking me?"

            "Minato's team arranged with us for you two to meet and talk with no means of escape," Chitarō explained.

            "Which means no running away until you're done," Ren cheerfully complemented.

            I sighed. For a moment, I thought about escaping now, quickly giving up on the idea. I could outrun my friends, but I'd never be strong enough to shove Ren away first. There was no getting away this time.

            We reached Team Seven's usual training ground. Fugaku was tapping his feet impatiently and Hizashi had his usual poker face on. My brother, on the other hand, was sprawled on the ground, seemingly observing the sky.

            Ren directed me to Minato's side, lightly tapping behind my knees and thus forcing me to sit down. He pointed his finger at my nose, looking all serious.

            "Talk," he commanded in a no non-sense voice.

            Fugaku snorted, crossing his bulky arms over his chest. I dutifully kept my eyes on them while the four Genin walked out of the training ground. After a minute or two of absolute silence, I decided to also lay down on the grass and watch the clouds passing by.

            It was almost winter, but Konoha wasn't even chilly. It seemed like this year would be another hot one. It had snowed once when I was three, but most of the time we spent our Christmas (and why did this holiday even exist here?) eating popsicles instead of drinking hot chocolate.

            "Ne, Mii-chan," Minato suddenly said and I was startled by the nickname. He hadn't me called that ever since I started calling him _Onii-san_ as opposed to _Onii-chan_. "You're my baby brother."

            I nodded in agreement. The word _brother_ filled my insides with warmth and I relished in it.

            "When this shinobi came to our house and told me that Dad was dead," he commented, "Strangely enough, my first thought was _How am I going to Kumi?_ I was shocked by his death, of course, but I repeated in my head at least a million times _How am going to look at my baby brother face and tell him that Daddy is dead?_ "

            I couldn't breathe, for one silly reason or another. Minato had never opened up this way to me. He had always wanted to look perfect and proper, because in his mind, an older brother had to be like this. I never told him not to try so hard, because I was selfish and a twisted part of me liked to see someone trying so hard for me.

            I wish I had told him how much he had done for me already.

            "When I went back home all these years ago and saw you on the ground crying over Mom, my first thought was worrying if something had happened to you," Minato admitted, almost ashamed. "Mom was pale as a sheet and unconscious, but I only saw you crying."

            I bit my lower lip.

            I wanted to hear this,

            I didn't want to hear this.

            "You're my baby brother. When you were born, Mom and Dad brought you home and you were sleeping in their arms. I wanted to hold you, but you were so tiny and I wondered if you'd break if I hug you too tightly. I still wonder about it sometimes," he laughed, still not looking at me.

            A heartbeat of silence.

            "I tried my hardest to be the perfect older brother. I may be overprotective sometimes, and I get jealous of how much time you spend with your friends, and I want to be the first person to hear about your achievements, and I want to be there when you cry, and I can't..."

            He sucked a breath in. I turned my neck toward him, surprised and not surprised to see tears glistening in his eyes. He'd probably been holding back ever since I started ignoring him.

            "I can't handle the thought of being left by you. You're my baby brother. I love you more than anyone, more than anything. I don't know what I did and I don't know if I can make it right - but I _need_ you to forgive whatever it was."

            He finally turned to me. His eyes had never seemed so blue. I'd never felt so guilty.

            "I need you to stay with me, Kumi, because if you don't, I don't know what I'm gonna do."

            I had felt many things. It's hard to live two different lifetimes and not feel a lot of unique feelings. However, the guilty and the happiness and the sadness and the peace I felt that time had never come at the same moment before then, but I was glad they did. I was suddenly _so glad_ I was alive to lay there crying with my brother and feeling many things.

            Almost shyly, embarrassed by my childish rejection of him for all this months, I put my thin arms around his torso. Minato stopped shedding tears to look at me bewildered. I sighed, relived at the honesty of his statement. I realized that his point of view was what I needed. His reassurance of his love for me was what I needed, because I was simple like that.

            "Mii-chan?"

            "You did nothing wrong," I murmured against his collarbone, unable to look at his face now that I'd started talking. "You were perfect ever since I could remember and I was stupid. I was jealous, I guess, of how much time you spent with Kushina-san and worried, too."

            "Eh?"

            I tucked my head even more under his shin when he tried to shuffled away.

            "You're my older brother," I told him. "I love when you pay attention me and care for me and take care of me, so I was insanely furious at how much time you spent with Kushina-san. I kept wondering if you wanted to share your afternoons with someone more talkative and funny. I know you have a crush on her - I was preoccupied with how this crush would evolve and if you'd spend less time with me."

            I paused.

            "When you were fighting in the Chūnin Exams, I kept thinking to myself _Minato's got this._ I was so sure you were going to make Chūnin," I admitted my silliness. "And then you simply gave up when you saw how injured Kushina-san was. I was furious with you, because you knew how much a promotion would help our economic situation. I felt as if you chose her over me and I felt so, so _stupid_ for even feeling this way."

            I breathed against his Chūnin vest. Even though he'd given up on that fight, the Sandaime had promoted him to Chūnin due to his succeful preivous fight and absolute perfection in the other parts of the Exam. Aburame Shibi, Nara Shikaku and my brother were the only ones to be promoted - and wasn't I immature? Wasn't I completely simpleminded to keep ignoring my brother despite his achievement?

            Minato's arm wounded their way around my waist and he lifted me up to sit on his lap. I laid my head on his shoulder, appreciating the unexpected peace. We stayed quiet for a couple of minutes, pondering over each other's words.

            A pair of lips pressed against my head.

            "I _am_ sorry for not realizing you felt this way," my brother told me. "It seems like we should have told each other about our feelings when we were first troubled by then instead of bottling them up."

            I nodded in agreement.

            "You don't have to be anyone but yourself, okay? I do like Kushina," he said, his cheeks aflame. I bit back a smile at the unusual sight, surprised by my lack of bitterness at his phrase. "But I'd never, ever want you to behave like someone else. You're my cute and quiet baby brother. Do you promise to stay true to yourself?"

            As an I answer, I snuggled closer to him. Laughing, Minato laid back down.

            "And I promise to stay with you forever."

            I breathed his scent in, trying to memorize how his arms felt around me and the way his chest went up and down with each breath. Forever was a promise he'd never be able to keep, and we knew, but it seemed silly to disagree.

            "I created my first seal," I said, strangely uncomfortable with the silence we fell in. I wanted to tell everything I had done these last months.

            "Eh, really?!"

            He started chatting a mile away and I managed to forget that Kushina even existed. I managed to forget, for a few moments, what the future held for us. I even managed to construct a bright happy ending as if the other, most probable one had never existed. The unfair thing about sad stories is that no one tells you they're sad - and you expect them to be happy.


	14. The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren and Chitaro are teasing little shits.

            I let my eyes roam around the busy market. I absolutely hated crowds, but watching such a colorful street coming alive while in the shadows wasn't bad at all. Although my one-room apartment came with the calmness of being near the clans' districts, I sometimes missed my old home. I missed how Daddy would spontaneously decide to buy dango or how Mom would stop in many stalls greeting everybody with a familiar smile.

            " _Kaa-san_ , it's Kumi-nii! Look, look!" A kid's voice said.

            I turned at the mention of my name, surprised at being spotted. A familiar child with chocolate-brown eyes and equally dark hair came sprinting toward me, his lips twisting up in a smile around a lollypop. In a more sedate pace, the child's mother followed him. Except for her hazel eyes lighter than her son's, said child could be her mirror image.

            "Kumi-nii, you never come visit anymore," the child, Shiranui Genma, complained. He had gotten bigger since last year, being five already.

            I smiled down at him, apologetically. Genma pouted, wounding his arms around my waist and burying his face in my abdomen. I put a hand over his hand, rubbing it softly.

            "You've grown, Kumi-chan," said Airi-oba-san, watching me with a smile of her own.

            "So has Genma," I replied.

            Said boy took a step back, his chubby hands still holding the front of my dark gray T-shit. He had exchanged his pout for a mischievous grin. Looking at his face, it was hard to believe that this cheerful little fellow would become future Genma - apathetic, laidback and whatnot. Then again, Kakashi was supposed to be a dickhead before becoming better.

            "Do take your time to visit us, hmm? Bokuo sees you more than I do, nowadays," she said, playing narrowing her hazel eyes at me.

            I felt my cheeks flushing in embarrassment. Bokuo-ji-san was Airi-oba-san's husband and a Chūnin. I usually saw him when he was on guard duty or in the mission room.

            "Sorry, Airi-oba-san."

            She hugged me briefly, "It's okay. Bring your friends  over too, yes? Now come, Genma, we have to finish buying the groceries."

            "But, Kaa-san, I want to stay with Kumi-nii," the five-year-old complained, trying to escape from his mother's firm grasp. He huffed, turning his head over his shoulder to shout at me and effectively attracting attention at us, "See you later, Kumi-nii!"

            I waved in goodbye.

            I heard footsteps approaching from behind me, the breathing of this group loud enough for my sharpened senses. Sakumo-sensei had spent so much time drilling tracking techniques in us - being a tracker first and foremost - that it had become instinctual to always be on guard.

            "Namikaze Kumi-chan?" Someone called.

            I turned around, observing the small group of kids around my age. They were obviously civilian with the way they carried themselves and their spotless clothes. Given the good quality of the cloth, I'd say they were from rich families, probably merchants or regular doctors.

            "Yes," I nodded, hesitantly. What could a bunch of civilians want with me?

            A dark-haired kid, the one who had spoken before, stepped up. His features were strangely familiar, but it took a few seconds for my usually perfect memory to comprehend why. Ojiro Tatsuya, a merchant's son whose family and associates had been escorted to Suna for the previous Chūnin Exam. I took a moment to praise myself for my good memory, as silly as it sounded.

            "Uh," He stuttered, apparently losing his courage. One of his friends, a mischievous-looking boy with honey-colored hair, slapped his back in encouragement.

            I tilted my head sideways, curious at the display.

            " _Doyouwanttogoonadatewithme?_ " The Ojiro family's oldest son sprouted in a single breath, mingling his words until they became a mess.

            I blinked, observing as a couple of kids blushed under my gaze. Seriously, what was wrong with them?

            I felt a hand falling over my head, knowing who it was as soon as I felt the chakra signature of this person entering my chakra field.

            "Okay, show is over, kiddies," Kihito's voice said from behind me.

            Glancing through his fingers to stare up at my friend's face, I saw the Saturobi heir glaring at the group of civilians. Huh. Kihito wasn't the friendliest guy in the world - in fact, he was almost at Uchiha-level - but he also wasn't directly rude. Most of the time, he just kept to himself and let a few witty comments flow into the conversation.

            The Ojiro kid frowned, looking genuinely upset, and turned around. Huffing, he stomped away with his group of faithful followers. I stared at their disappearing forms in confusion.

            "Ne, Kihito, what was that about?" Almost thirty-year-old mentality didn't meant much when you are reborn instead of acquiring new life experiences, apparently.

            He sighed, "Something your brother fears with all his might."

            I was _really_ confused. Kihito suddenly smiled down at me, almost condescendingly.

            "Forget, you know," his verbal tick made me lose interest. If I started pressuring him, our conversation would be full of _you know'_ s and everybody was in agreement that the only thing more annoying than Kihito's verbal tick was Kushina's verbal tick.

            Kihito crossed his arms over his chest. His bō-staff was securely strapped on his back, looking innocently harmless. With his dark blue hoodie and black pants, not to mention forehead-protector slightly shadowing his eyes, however, his form was almost threatening. It seemed weird to think of my friends becoming legends and scary in their own way, but I knew enough about the _Naruto_ series to be aware of their future reputation. Even sweet Mikoto would become a Jōnin before retiring early to take care of her kids. Seriously scary notion.

            "What were you doing here alone, anyway, Flea?"

            "Huh? Ah, I was waiting for Shikaku-san, actually," I admitted. Kihito's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "He sometimes comes to my Fūinjutsu class to play shogi with me. Suzaku-sensei says I need to train my mind to think on the spot or something."

            Kihito scratched his cheek distractedly, "Shouldn't you simply go to the Nara compound like always, though?"

            I shook my head.

            "Shikaku-san promised to buy me my own shougi board," I said and shrugged, amending, "He said I can play by myself to think up new strategies, but it sounds _seriously_ boring."

            Kihito chuckled, rubbing my head affectionately.

            "Never change, Ducky."

            I looked away, pondering over this strange morning. What was it with people telling me not to change? And, really, what the hell was that with the Ojiro guy? I sighed to myself.

            This world was so confusing sometimes.

* * *

 

            In spite of all his brilliant deduction skills and analytical eyes, Nara Shikaku still managed to be surprised one time or another. He wasn't arrogant about it, but he wasn't all that humble.

            (Humbleness had nothing to do with Nara genii, lazy or not, believe it or not.)

            Shikaku had been spending an inordinate amount of time doing basically nothing this past year. Technically speaking, he wasn't _that_ upset about it - but if he had to hear his mother hammering away at how much _nothing_ he was doing, Shikaku was sure he'd snap.

            Chitarō - the little jerk - was all too happy to point out how he could spend his time training with his teammates, despite being the only Chūnin in his Genin team. Smug bastard.

            It wasn't his fault that Inoichi and Chōza still were Genin. Not that he _blamed_ them exactly. However, it did annoy him how much time they had to spend with their new - _and absolutely temporary_ \- teammate, Umino Tetsuo, to learn teamwork and formations for the nearing Chūnin Exam.

            (Nara rule number four: they could get surprisingly jealous of their _possessions_.)

            Shikaku was in such a sour mood these past weeks that even the mission room's personnel had stopped pestering him about taking B-rank missions with other teams. An unmotivated Nara was equal to a snail refusing to move. Even their teacher, Kurama Murakumo, had given up on making him train individually.

            Shikaku wasn't proud of his behavior per se, but it wasn't affecting everybody all that much, so he stopped caring mid-way November. He spent his days tending to their clan's deer, gazing at the clouds, stopping by Inoichi or Chōza's house when they were free and occasionally learning one thing or another from his father (who was remarkably calm at his heir's extreme laziness).

            Somewhere around mid-January, when the weather got unexpectedly too cold to stay outside standing still, Shikaku occupied himself by interrupting his cousin's classes. He had known Suzaku ever since they were in their diapers, so it wasn't difficult to notice that it didn't really bother the old Nara when he abruptly entered his house. Tiny Namikaze Kumi didn't seem distressed at his presence during the Fūinjutsu lessons, thus there he stayed.

            He had always liked his older cousin Suzaku. He wasn't a distant relative of the clan, like the Kinokawa and Tokuwa families, or even a many-times cousin. His father, Shintō, used to be Shikaku's uncle before he was captured by Iwa nin during the last war. Well, _is_ his uncle, technically speaking. Suzaku's own older brother had fought during the Second War and died, effectively making the then young boy die of depression. All in all, cousin Suzaku was left without immediate family and the only reason he didn't fall into the despair was because of his shared apprenticeship with his best friend under Uzukami Mito.

            Shikaku tried to visit him at least once every fortnight, if only to make sure the older teen was still correctly functioning. When he started to spend so much time with his cousin in January, he noticed the most curious thing. Little Kumi had no idea about his teacher's dark past, but he had somehow managed to make his cousin's days brighter with his shy yet determined demeanor.

            And that was exactly why he had decided to buy the small blond a shogi board as a token of his gratefulness. Not that he knew this. Shikaku didn't care either way.

            He sighed at his own troublesome conscience - _technically he didn't have to buy the kid anything_ \- before bypassing his brother's sitting figure in the living room and heading for the front door.

            "Going out?" Chitarō called, smirking like the bastard he was.

            Shikaku wondered when his younger brother had gotten even smugger than his usual bratty self. He was fifteen - seriously too old to deal with the brat's rebelling phase. Next thing you know, the younger Nara would be spouting lame comebacks and kissing everything with legs under a skirt.

            (He'd know.)

            "Obviously," he replied, dryly.

            Chitarō's lips twisted into the usual Nara smirk. One would think the most annoying clan in Konoha was the Uchiha or the Hyūga, but they'd be wrong. It was easier to tolerate silent, anti-social jerks than unusually intelligent ones.

            "I heard from a little bird that someone was going on a _date_ of all things," he said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

            Shikaku rolled his dark eyes, "Chita, you're such a little kid."

            The younger Nara's smirk disappeared at once, automatically making the older one twist his lips into a mocking grin. Ah. The accomplishment of disturbing younger brothers.

            "Only a little kid would think that going on a shopping trip with someone was the same as going on a date," Shikaku continued. "I'm buying a shogi board for an eleven-year-old brat, not making out with a eighteen-year-old girl."

            Chitarō narrowed his eyes.

            "Kumi is not a brat," was all he had to say, before turning around and lying down on the sofa once again.

            Shikaku sighed one more time - just for the satisfaction of it - and went out. As if an eleven-year-old brat could manage to make him excited. Even if said eleven-year-old brat was the most curious puzzle in the world.

            Eh.

* * *

 

            "Good afternoon, Shikaku-san," I greeted the older teen once I saw his taller form coming in my direction.

            The Nara heir patted my head, much like his brother would do, in response. Without saying a word, he started walking and simply followed. The silence didn't bother me - the guy had spent too much time staring at me during my Fūinjutsu classes by now - but it was unnerving in a way. Not because I was one of these people who couldn't help but fulfill the silence, but because Shikaku himself was disconcerting.

            The Nara heir was as intimidating as he was caring. I'd seen the way he'd smile at his teammates or tease his brother, but I'd also observed how he could make a grown adult tremble with only a few words. I didn't consider myself especially gifted, but my constant reading had made me somewhat intelligent. Around Shikaku? I might as well have been a retard.

            I looked down for a moment, trying to search for the courage deep inside myself. It was easier to talk to Shikaku with someone around, that was for sure.

            "Hmm, you don't really need to buy me anything, Shikaku-san," I said. It came out more ungrateful than I was aiming for, but it still sounded more polite than blurting out about how I didn't even like shogi that much.

            With his hands deep in his pockets and shoulders slightly slouched, the Nara heir was the definition of bored and relaxed. Only his dark eyes, paying attention to everything and everyone around us, betrayed his alert state of mind.

            "Nah, you're a cute kid," he replied, not sounding worried at all about my words. "You deserve a treat once in awhile."

            His answer made my cheeks burn like hellfire. He grinned down at me and the way his teeth settled behind his lips was almost devilish. I turned my eyes away at that, practically feeling the amusement dancing off of him.

            The series _really_ should show more of the secondary characters' personalities.

* * *

 

            " _So_ ," Ren made as soon as I arrived at our usual training ground the next morning.

            I looked at him, confused.

            "So?" I meant to say _so what_ , but it came too rude inside my head.

            "How did your date go?" He said, his dirty-blond ponytail bouncing around his head in his excitement.

            I gave him my usual response - that is, staying quiet while feeling my whole face burning in embarrassment. I hadn't thought of our trip yesterday as a date. Actually, I had gotten kind of used to being a kid once again, even though my mentality wasn't of one. The whole concept of crushing on someone or going out hadn't passed through my head until now, because my mind was still fixated on the same old instinct of self-depreciation from my previous life.

            "It wasn't a date," I  managed to stammer out.

            Ren's pupil-less forest green eyes pierced me with unusual attention.

            "But I thought you liked Shika," he said, though his voice wasn't speculating. He sounded sure of his words.

            I thought I was going to faint with all the blood rushing to my head. Rather childishly, I covered my eyes. I wouldn't be able to answer if I kept looking at my best friend's expression.

            "I've never liked anyone _that_ way," I answered, more embarrassed than exasperated.

            Well, that was lie. I had liked someone that way before. Thing is: middle-schoolers don't take you seriously if you're the freaky kid in the classroom. Needless to say, I had been harshly rejected. As if coming to terms with your homosexuality wasn't hard enough in my old world without others teenagers being cruel about it. The bullying during the last three years of my British life had been especially difficult to endure when compared to the other grades of my educational life.

            I peeked through my fingers at the sudden silence. Ren seemed unimpressed.

            "But you are always stuttering around him and blushing and," he'd drone on and on about all my little humiliations had I not put my hand over his mouth.

            "I do not stutter," I said, trying to sound stern. _I do hesitate before speaking, though_ , my mind betrayed me.

            "But you _luuuve_ him."

            "I don't _luuuve_ him," I mocked his sing-song tone.

            "Who doesn't love who?"

            I didn't jump in surprise at the new presence. My chakra field was in the process of being an unconscious action, always floating around me like a cloak. As soon as Chitarō entered my admittedly small range, I had sensed him. His breathing and footsteps should have warned me of his sudden appearance, but Sakumo-sensei had trained us enough to be able to walk around as quiet as the night.

            "Kumi-chan says he doesn't love your brother," Ren quickly filled our friend in the news.

            Chitarō quirked an eyebrow up. I glanced away, pretending to observe the trees, because this expression reminded me of his older brother, consequently reminding me of Ren's earlier words.

            Why did Nara look so much alike?

            "Aniki told me off yesterday for teasing him," Chitarō admitted, sounding sullen. "So, yeah, your _gossip_ was wrong, Ren."

            "Hey, I don't gossip, Chita!"

            I was only too grateful they decided to drop the subject. I didn't want to think about Shikaku anymore. Not because in this world being homosexual was as bad as being in my old one, but because I wasn't ready to face the consequences of pondering over my feelings.

            This world didn't care about gender. You could go and kiss anyone you liked. Clan heads were expected to produce heirs, of course, but no one would bat an eyelash at having a consort or at being in an affair or at homosexuality itself.

            I should be content with the good news. But like the saying goes - _old habits die hard_. It was easy to pretend that I had never seen my Father's disappointed gaze or Sister's wary glances or Bullies' disgusted eyes. By now, it was all too simple to wake up and think nothing of my old life - to think of this life as _my_ life.

            It was in moments like this that I felt as if I had received a slap right in the middle of my face. In short moments of blushing under my best friend's teasing words due to a silly phrase such as _You like Shikaku._

            I was name _eternal beauty_ in this life because I was beautiful, but I didn't _feel_ beautiful. I looked at myself in the mirror when brushing my hair or washing my face and didn't think much of it. My memories were blurry, my old face was a ever-confusing image, but it was there. The feeling of defeat, of depreciation, of utter shame.

            Glass shards weren't that easily repaired.


	15. The Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Chūnin Exams begin.

_Kumi,_

_Do your best in your Chūnin Exams, sweetie! Go roll all over them!_

_Love,_

_Mom_

* * *

 

            "Man, it's such a downer that the only reason Koharu-sensei let us participate is because Konoha's the host this time," Tsume complained, all but melting on the chair she was sitting.

            Kihito rolled his eyes at her, "It's all your fault, you know."

            "What are you trying to say, Monkey Boy?"

            "Nothing really."

            Ren laughed at our friends' argument. Chitarō simply sighed, exasperated and annoyed all at the same time. I kept to myself, admiring Mikoto's endless patience at her team's antics.

            In a way, Tsume's complaint was true. The Chūnin Exams were taking place this week, a little over a year since the last one in Suna. Since our village was hosting said exam, most Jōnin-sensei chose to register their teams, even the rookie ones, as a training experience. The only glaring exception was Team One, the next First Response Team, a fact that everyone in the ninja corps knew.

            Oh, we were participating alright. But while no one expect any of the rookies to become a Chūnin, Team One was being carefully observed. As if I wasn't pressured already.

            I turned my attention back to my friends just in time to see Tsume stuffing her face with dango. I stifled a giggle - she resembled a squirrel with her cheeks puffing out like this.

            "Oh, yeah," she said and munched on her treat at the same time. "Why is the King of Brats with us?"

            I glanced at Mikoto's little brother. The guy hadn't changed much since the last time I saw him. Thankfully enough, the Uchiha heir was getting busier and busier with his Academy classes and family training, which drastically reduced the chances of Mikoto trying to make him less anti social. I loved the girl and her kind heart, but Uchiha Kizoku was more annoying than Ren on caffeine.

            "Hn," was all he said. I'm not even kidding. The Uchiha clan certainly won the prize for _Who Can Stay Silent the Longest?_ hands down.

            Kuromaru growled alongside his partner. Tsume was the last person you'd want to give attitude.

            "Seriously? Damn Uchiha," she muttered, turning back to her food.

            Mikoto blushed, "I apologize for his rudeness."

            I felt bad for her. It must be hard to have such a horrible brother. My Sister would know.

            Chitarō, always the peacemaker, patted her head good-heartedly.

            "It's not your fault your kid brother can be a mature person instead of a bratty jerk."

            Ren outright laughed at our friend's honesty. Well, we could always count on the Nara frankness to comfort a person.

            Kizoku snorted, turning his chair away from our joined tables.

            "Shitty brat," Tsume murmured, sounding displeased.

            I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing.

* * *

 

            "Did you take stomach medicine? You know you sometimes get stomached when you're nervous. What about a roll of bandages? What if you get hurt? Here, take some paper and ink in case you need to write a seal. Oh, no! I totally forgot to buy ration bars - we run out of them after my last mission!"

            I sighed, observing my brother ran around our one-bedroom apartment like a headless chicken. Seeing such a calm person lose their cool like this somehow made me less nervous, which was a pretty good thing considering the first part of the Chūnin Exams was about to take place.

            I put my hand over his forearm to stop his search for ration bars.

            "Onii-chan," I said, knowing that the now seldom used - _chan_ would get his attention, "We didn't run out of ration bars. I put them in my pouch for this exact moment, remember?"

            Minato paused, "You did? Oh..."

            I smiled at his embarrassed at expression.

            "Sorry."

            "It's ok. Let's go, otherwise I'll be late."

            As we lived closer to the clans' districts instead of the main market, the streets weren't brimming with excited villagers. The Chūnin Exams were a big deal as it brought foreigners and new products, though it'd only get real full during the third part of it.

            "You're quite calm," Minato commented when the Academy entered our sight and I didn't turn around to run away.

            I stayed quiet for a couple of seconds, not trusting myself to speak. My brother stopped on his tracks, looking around to see if any of the foreigner Genin was paying attention to our interaction before putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

            "Ok, so you're not _so_ calm," he joked, trying to ease the tension. "It's alright to be a little nervous - just remember not to let it stop you from doing what you need to do."

            I nodded, though most of his words went over my head.

            "Does the baby need her Nii-chan to hold her hand?" a mocking voice drew my attention away from my brother's reassuring eyes. The usage of a feminine pronoun didn't even make me depressed anymore.

            I searched around for it, but the owner had already made himself scarce. Minato sighed, taking his hand off my shoulder.

            "Sorry," he said.

            I bit my lower lip, reaching with the very tips of my fingers for his hand. I smiled up at him.     

            "I don't mind," I said and, feeling unexpectedly confident and remembering Mom's words, I added, "I'll just roll all over them."

            Minato's lips twitched. He crouched down a little in order to rest his forehead against mine.

            "Go out there and show them how terrifying Namikaze Kumi can be," he told me with a grin.

            I nodded dutifully.

            "Kumi-chan!" Ren's voice called a few meters away from us. He waved excitedly, completely not getting the mood around us. Chitarō walked behind him with no hurry.

            I pictured Sakumo-sensei's confident grin at us yesterday while he gave us his last tips. I locked my jaw, balling my hands into fists. _I could do this._ I would pass this exam. _We_ could do this and officially become Team One.

* * *

 

            "This is too much, oh, God!"

            Said line wasn't spoken in desperation. Beside me, Kihito, Tsume and Ren were laughing their asses off.

            "All of them think you're a girl," Kihito said between chuckles. As we had decided to wait by one of the corners of the classroom, his revelation went unheard.

            Mikoto's thin hand rested over my arm in a comforting manner. I smiled at her, but I wasn't feeling irritated at their mistake at all. Most of the village already thought I was a girl when they saw me for the first - and sometimes even second or third - time. A bunch of foreign teams underestimating me because of my gender, size and age would only work in my favor.

            "Alright, PIPE IT DOWN!" A voice shouted from the front of the classroom. Almost immediately, all whispers stopped. Someone shushed another Genin. "My name is Kagetsu Naori and I'll be proctor of this part."

            Ren and I exchanged glances. He probably remembered her because she worked in the same division as his father, Head of the T&I, but I was familiar with the name from Sakumo-sensei's monologues. Our Jōnin teacher was always stressing the importance of knowing the names of our comrades and their abilities as it could help during a future mission if we happened to be paired off with another person.

            Kagetsu Naori was one of Konoha's poison specialists. The Kagetsu family lived in another village in the Land of Fire and sold herbs all over the world, so it was no surprise that she specialized in poison making. She was the only Kagetsu currently living in Konoha, which made her pretty famous here.

            "Each team will receive three flasks containing different types of liquid. Two will have water inside, another will have a colorless poison capable of knocking an adult out for three days, thus rendering said person incapable of continuing to second part of the exam. Choose wisely who will drink which flask, because you will have to give me the flask that contains poison to get out of this room."

            Murmuring filled the classroom while some Chūnin gave each team three silver-colored flasks. Some people didn't even seem worried, while others were pointing fingers and each other and deciding their plans.

            "Hah," Tsume made, "She never said it was odorless. There's nothing an Inuzuka nose can't differentiate."

            Kihito raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "I'm amazed that you even know what _differentiate_ means."

            "Why, you-"

            "You have one hour! BEGIN!" Kagetsu Naori shouted, disappearing in a puff of smoke. The Chūnins followed soon after.

            Chitarō sat down, resting his back against the wall. We let him close his eyes and think while we analyzed the flasks by ourselves. Ren tried sniffing them like Tsume - and a couple of others - was doing, but he shrugged at my questioning stare.

            "Smell the same to me," he admitted.

            "They look the same too, though that's pretty much the purpose of this test," I reported to Chitarō as he wasn't even looking at the flasks.

            Ren frowned, "Why would they make someone drink a knock-out poison? To eliminate a bunch of people and proceed?"

            Chitarō opened his eyes, looking serious.

            "That's a good question. Technically speaking, teams don't become Chūnin as a whole, but it's a well-known knowledge that the second part of the exam are team-based. As Genin squads are made of three Genins, it probably means that we have to find a way around the poison no matter what."

            "No matter what?" Ren scratched his cheek in thought. "Like a _We won't pass if one of us is unconscious_ shit?"

            Chitarō nodded. I looked up at the ceiling, wondering. Having watched most of the _Naruto_ series, what they were saying made sense. All the teams in the Chūnin Exams were always eliminated as a unit during the first and second part of said exam. If any of us drank the poison and were knocked out, all of us would be out.

            "Ok, so what do we do?" Ren asked no one in particular. A few teams had already found a solution to the problem and were sent out of the classroom, even though only five minutes had gone by.

            "Well, none of us trained to attain poison immunity," Chitarō said, mostly to himself. "We don't have Tsume's nose, obviously. We don't specialize in poison making to be able to spot any difference or know how to be able to differentiate. We don't have bugs like the Aburame clan."

            Our Nara friend frowned, before sighing.

            "Damn," he muttered. "Aniki would have the answer by now."

            Ren lightly hit his arm, "Hey! Look, Shika is my friend and all, but we don't need that guy's brain to pass this exam. You're smart, Chita."

            I smiled at Chitarō, reaching up to pat his head like he did to calm me down sometimes. It was easy to forget that we had problems with the way our group acted most of the time.

            "I could try to create a poison detecting seal," I suddenly spoke up. I usually didn't speak before thinking, but my friend's discontent face was on the front of my mind while I was trying to think of a solution.

            Both my teammates turned in my direction, surprised. Ren's mouth opened in wonderment.

            "Wow, Kumi-chan, _inventing_ a new seal in _one_ hour?" He sounded amazed.

            I looked away, wishing I hadn't spoken anything. I had gotten much better at Fūinjutsu under Suzaku-sensei careful instruction, but creating a seal in one hour was basically impossible.

            _Wait_ , I thought to myself. I didn't need to create a seal from scratch. Modifying a seal was much easier and less time-consuming than inventing one. And, thankfully enough, an identifying seal already existed. They were mostly used as a way of detecting an enemy in whichever place you decided to apply the seal. It worked as a sensor's ability would, except you didn't have to use any type of chakra field for that and anybody could sense another person as long as they applied chakra to the seal.

            But was I capable of modifying a sensor seal in under one hour?

            _Does the baby need her Nii-chan to hold her hand?_

I closed my eyes, blocking any negative thoughts about myself. This wasn't about me. If we couldn't find a solution in the next fifty minutes, none of us would pass to the second part of the exam. All of our hard work this past year would have been for nothing. Sakumo-sensei's faith in us would be meaningless. Suzaku-sensei's diligent teaching would be pointless.

            I looked up from my shoes, vanishing any jitters I'd been feeling until now and staring into my friends' anticipating expression. This wasn't the time to be a scaredy cat. This wasn't the time to let Father, Sister and Bullies' voice reach deep into my soul and scare me away.

            "I can try to work with something that already exists," I said, not even adding something such as _But keep thinking of other solutions while I'm at it_. I simply sat down and took my paper slips for seal-making and a ink pot. Surprisingly enough, my hand wasn't even shaking while I held my brush.

_Go out there and show them how terrifying Namikaze Kumi can be._

_Go roll all over them._

* * *

 

            The sensor seal had been invented by an Uzumaki a long time ago. The creator hadn't surprised me when Suzaku-sensei explained the origin of said seal - not because the Uzumaki clan had created most concepts in Fūinjutsu, but because many of them had been recognized as competent sensors and would know the intricacies on sensing chakra enough to invent a new method of doing it without actually utilizing chakra.

            Ironically enough, they were pretty simple in the Fūinjutsu department. Any seals with less than ten different symbols were considered easy to learn and use. As it was written in a circle with six symbols, a detecting seal was considered uncomplicated, which made its modification cleaner.

            I stared at the combination of Greek letters - though in this world they were simply Fūin tools - making sense of them in my head. There was a theta beside a symbol that distinctly looked like an _X_ , usually used to represent the word _chakra_ in a seal, which explained the non-necessity of chakra usage to sense the enemies. Thetas were used as a nullifying tool. As it was common of Uzumaki seals, it was written in a loose circle - easy for stabilization even if all elements weren't perfectly matching each other.

            I bit my lower lip, thinking over the X-wannabe. There were two of them in the seal - the one to represent the non-necessity of using chakra and another to represent the purpose, that is, sensing chakra. Maybe if I simply replaced the _chakra_ part of the seal for something that resembled _poison_ in Fūinjutsu vocabulary, I'd be able to sense which flask contained something different from the others.

            I paused.

            That was it. There wasn't a symbol for _poison_ , but there was a symbol for _contrasting_ frequently used in barrier seals to specify the surface in which the seal should act on. Maybe if I added a magatama, useful to bring a symbol back to its base form, I'd be able to obtain the _differentiate_ purpose.

            I carefully brushed theta followed by _X_ in my blank paper. Three perpendicular lines came soon after, indicating what was known as the beginning and end of the seals as was common in Uzumaki circles. Circles were endless forms, theoretically speaking, but, in Fūinjutsu, that was where the chakra should be applied and where the effect would be directed in case something wasn't balanced enough. Most beginners in seal making added three perpendicular lines just in case things went south. I let the two next symbols as they were, since their meaning was _sense_ when put together. And, finally, instead of writing _X_ once again, I put down the Greek letter regularly used in barrier seals, phi.

            "Fifteen minutes," Ren murmured beside me. His warning wasn't to put pressure on me and urge me on, but my nerves - which had been doing fine until now - stilled for a moment.

            I took a deep breath, calming myself. My seal was ready. There was no need to panic. I looked over it twice, checking for possible mistakes or any necessary alterations. Seal modification wasn't _that_ hard considering the fact that I had already created a seal from scratch. I mentally thanked Suzaku-sensei for making me work so hard even though his first instinct as a Nara was to take a nap instead of trying to teach a eleven-year-old Genin the nuances of such a complex art.

            "It's done," I said, finally looking up from the paper. The classroom had progressively emptied itself in the past minutes and, by now, most teams in room were the ones with no solution and no way to proceed to the next part. The desperation to pass hadn't reached those teams yet. If everything went right, we wouldn't be here to see frantic Genin forcing poison down their teammates' throat in the final five minutes.

            Ren was observing my seal with a critic eye, before smiling lopsided at me.

            "I can't make head or tails of it, Kumi-chan," he cheerfully admitted.

            "Try to sound less proud of yourself when you speak about it," Chitarō said, hitting the back of our blond friend's head.

            I smiled, feeling pleased with myself even though my cheeks were on fire at their rewarding grins.

            "It isn't all that difficult to understand," I rambled. "It basically says _No chakra Stabilize Sense Difference_."

            My friends looked at each other. Ren chuckled.

            "Kumi-chan, it _is_ that difficult. Accept the praise and make this baby work. I'm frankly tired of this boring classrom - as if our Academy years weren't enough."

            I applied the paper slip around the three flasks - as they were thin, my seal went around them with no problem. I pushed chakra into the seal to make it work for the first time - even though it wouldn't be needed a second time if it was the case - and my hand automatically reached for one of the flasks as soon as the sensation popped into my head. Sensor seals were definitely creepy.

            "Yes!" Ren celebrated, picking the flask from my hand and doing a victory dance. Other teams looked at us with envy.

            Chitarō yawned, "Troublesome."

            I smiled to myself. As we exited the classroom to wait for the next part of the exam, I felt that even someone like me could become Chūnin - that even someone as broken as me could get himself together long enough to, yeah, go roll all over them.


	16. The Technique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi panics (again). No surprise there.

            I was _not_ panicking (again).

            My team and I were about to enter a training ground scary enough to be called the Forest of _Death_ , but I was absolutely calm. We were ten minutes away from starting the most important test of our life - until then, at least - but there was no one else more tranquil than I was at this moment.

            Like I said, I wasn't having a panic attack whatsoever.

            "Wow, Kumi-chan is turning blue," Ren said, sounding curious and excited all the same.

            Chitarō hit him on the arm, "He's pale, you dunce, not blue."

            "That bad, huh? Should we give him a pep talk or something?"

            I shook my head at their antics, aware they were doing it for my benefit. In a way, it worked - I could feel my chest rising steadily as I reminded myself of their presence. I wasn't going to enter Genins' worst nightmare alone. We were doing this together.

            Ren bent his knees a little to talk to me eye-to-eye, smiling softly at my tensed lips. If anybody else had done this - _bending to speak to short, frail Kumi_ and I wasn't entering the pity zone at all - I'd probably feel slightly irritated. Ren, however, was one of my best friends. He teased me all the time about everything, but would never deliberately mock me.

            "Hey," he greeted, as if we hadn't been speaking to each other for a few minutes already.

            "Hi," I said back, equally quiet.

            "Why are you so nervous? You were in total control a couple of hours ago. You kicked ass," Ren admitted in a chuckle.

            Chitarō snorted beside us, his hands deep in his pockets much like his brother did.

            I glanced around, trying to think of a reasonable enough answer.

            "It's just... When you are in a classroom, with no real danger around us, it's ok to fail. I was modifying a seal and it's one of my best areas, yeah, but that's not why I was calm. I kept thinking, in the back of my mind, that if I failed... Well, you guys would be fine. Disappointed. Sad. But not hurt. Or dead."

            "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ren gestured with his hands and his exaggerated movements made a little laugh escape its way up my throat. "Who said anything about dying? We're gonna kick ass today. Just like you did all by yourself earlier. Right now," he put his hand on my right shoulder, "You're like Captain Kickass. You're in charge of teaching us how to kick ass."

            Chitarō rolled his eyes, "The nice thing about Ren is that you can count on him for synonyms."

            Unsurprisingly, my next breath came a little easier. And as Ren and Chitarō started to bicker as usual, I found that my laugh could pass through my lips without being painfully panicked.

* * *

 

            The second part of the Chūnin Exam was pretty much like what I remembered from the _Naruto_ series. We had to survive on this huge forest for five days while protecting our _responsibility_ and retrieving the enemy's one. All in all, it sounded reasonable - well, for a ninja exam, I mean.

            The only weird, difficult part was what our _responsibility_ entailed. It was a living being. More specifically, a baby rabbit. And let me tell you one thing: when you're the middle of the scariest forest you've ever seen, trying not to die and worry about your teammates dying, the last thing you want to be responsible for is _baby_. Any type of baby, for that matter.

            "He's so cute, though," Ren commented, when Chitarō promptly complained about our new responsibility. Or client. Who knew.

            "Dude, the gates opened five minutes ago and we officially have to make sure this... _bunny_ doesn't die," Chitarō sounded exasperated. " _And_ we'll have to kill another team's rabbit. It _is_ way too troublesome."

            I had to agree with Chita on that. Rabbits weren't my most beloved thing in the world. I loved all kinds of felines and some birds. Rabbits were above arachnids on my _favorite animals_ list, but everything was above arachnids. However this didn't mean that I wanted to kill any rabbits. Even better, I didn't want to kill a living being simply because of test. But any seasoned ninja would say that killing was an essential part of being a shinobi and one should not hesitate, blah, blah, blah.

            I wasn't ready to kill. Period. I knew how it felt to die. The feeling of laying on the ground, half dazed, half in pain, drunkenly wondering what had just happened. And the fact that I even remembered feeling somewhat glad for these feelings didn't make it better, because I liked my life now and didn't feel like dying anymore.

            "Kumi?" Chitarō called me and I turned my head in his direction. "Can you expand your chakra field as we travel? Ten meters in front of us and five behind should be enough."

            I nodded in agreement. Sakumo-sensei had advised me a few months before about training my sensing ability. Many shinobi had it, but most stopped practicing it when they entered their comfort zone. I followed his advice and trained with Minato once or twice a week.

            In a way, Minato and I should never be able to train sensor abilities together. My older brother was stuck in a problem where he couldn't sense anyone who wasn't touching the ground - hopping from tree to tree, or even just staying still on a higher place, was the same as not being there. I could, on the other hand, sense anyone in my field, which was significantly smaller than Minato's entire ground area.

            I let the - pretty metaphoric - chakra cloak around myself disperse, snaking its way around thick branches and dark leaves, making me acutely aware of everything close. There were more birds on the trees than I thought, as they were surprisingly silent for such melodic animal. One feline to our right and a... _hare?_ four meteres behind us.

            "Clear for now," I murmured, focusing on the feel of my field. Unlike my quite poor stamina, my concentration paired well enough with my good chakra control. I could maintain my energy field up for a little under an hour, before tiredness started to seep into my bones.

            Ren and Chitarō exchanged a look, before glancing around the clearing we were. The tower would be easy enough to find - Ren could mind transfer into a bird and get us an upper view. The problem would be encountering a team with an alive bunny.

            I observed our own baby rabbit on Ren's arms. He was unexpectedly calm with us, not finding the scenery strange or anything. Maybe the proctors had been kind enough to doze them with tranquilizers (and I didn't really believe in such a kindness). My blond friend was the one holding it mainly due to Chitarō's speacialty. I was too busy focusing on my chakra field to hold our responsibility while hopping from branch to branch, not to mention that should a fighting situation arise, I'd need both my hands to make hand-seals. Chitarō would also be too busy engaging our enemies with his katana. As Ren was our Genjutsu (which utilized few hand-seals) and long-range weaponry guy, it made utmost sense that the rabbit would stay with him.

            Chita stopped his brief observation of our surroundings and bended his knees in preparation for a high jump.

            "You guys ready?"

            "Yes."

            "Yep."

            We silently hopped onto a tree branch, somewhat gracefully managing to stay glued with chakra to the wood, and started the second part of our exam.

            If only our responsibilities were scrolls.

* * *

 

            The first day was boring - and this coming from the person who mostly despised meaningless fights. We conserved our energy, resting when necessary and not abusing of my sensing abilities, but there had been nothing to be worried about.

            We stopped to rest when a hollowed tree came into our vision. It had foliage in front of it, so it was pretty much a perfect hiding spot. The only disadvantage was the lack of a nearby river, but we'd have to make do with our water canteens.

            "Let's rest for six hours," Chitarō said, having already made a general plan of what we'd do while inside this forest. "One of us keeps watch for a couple hours and then can sleep four."

            "Well, I don't mind being the first one," Ren promptly said, putting the bunny down between a few rocks. The baby rabbit hopped from its spot some meters, before deciding to sleep. "I'm starving and won't be able to sleep with an empty stomach in the end."

            Chitarō rolled his eyes when Ren took his choice of (camp/survival) food out of his pouch.

            "Did you seriously bring a package of nattō and one of senbei as a form of nutrition?"

            Ren made an offended expression, "Hey, nattō is delicious! And senbei is a good plate-ish spoon."

            I let out a small laugh at that. Nattō was one of the most horrible foods in existence - also known as fermented soybeans. Senbei were fine enough, a type of rice crackers good with tea but nothing more. Ren was the only person I knew that was able to put nattō over senbei and not only eat it, but love it.

            "It's frankly disgusting," Chitarō mumbled, settling down to rest. I smiled at him, finding it funny. His brother and he absolutely detested nattō. I simply wouldn't choose it in a restaurant or dinner table.

            I walked over to Ren, who had decided to sat near the entrance. Fishing a pre-made seal out of my pouch, I gave it to him. My best friend took it without thinking, thanking me.

            "It's a sensor seal," I told him by the way of an explanation.

            "Like the one you did earlier today?" He questioned. I had briefly said to my teammates what the seal I used in the first part of the exam did.

            "More or less. I modified a sensor seal to create an identifying seal." Seeing his frown, I kept going, "An identifying seal that specifically targeted poisons and such. A sensor seal works with chakra and heartbeats, depending on the complexity of the drawing. Apply your chakra in this symbol," I pointed at it, "each ten minutes and you should be ok. The after-effect lasts for awhile."

            Ren nodded, "Thanks. Easier than opening my senses, that's for sure."

            I smiled.

            "I think so too." It had been one of the reasons for training sensing and even taking my time to learn how to draw a sensor seal after all.

            I laid down close to the sleeping bunny, just in case he decided to hop off somewhere else. My nerves had been so jumpy today that my brain was overworked. I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

* * *

 

            I woke up milliseconds before a hand reached out to shake my arm. My chakra cloak by now naturally clung to me, alerting me of too close presences. I opened my eyes to find Chitarō smirking at me, as if he could see my tenseness before I had confirmed it was really him.

            I hadn't noticed how paranoid Sakumo-sensei's training had made us until now. It was half scary, half impressive.

            "It's your turn to keep watch," he said, though I had already concluded this. I nodded, observing his body lazily settle down once again. Despite his obvious lethargy, I could picture his attentive eyes wandering around during his turn to stay awake.

            Bunny was still sleeping when I checked before walking to the entrance. Thank God he was still a baby - had it been a grown rabbit, we most likely would have a harder time controlling him.

            I took a ration bar out of my pouch, eating it with a grimace. They were nutritive enough to keep a seasoned ninja satiated for an entire day, but tasted like fried nuts smashed together with sand and a tasteless, sticky sauce.

            "Can't be worse than Ren's senbei and nattō combination," I told myself, taking another bite.

            As a way of conserving my energy, I stuck to the usage of my sensor seal. Once in a while I pushed chakra onto it, checking for our surroundings. I didn't expect enemies close to us as there was no river nearby and most teams wouldn't choose a water-less spot to hide for the night, thus I was rightfully surprised when three heartbeats were caught on my seal.

            "Chitarō, Ren," I called in a whisper, throwing a pebble at each of them. My teammates woke up with a start, gathering their things within ten seconds. I gave them enough time to strap their pouches on their hips and we moved out of the hollowed tree.

            Our plan - in case we encountered a wandering team close to us - was simple. The person on watch would be the one leading and the other two would fall back in case something was missed. Team formations had been drilled so much into us that as soon as the vanguard entered a position the other two would automatically know the next step. Sakumo-sensei had said that a perfect First Response Team was able to communicate with no words.

            I opened my hearing sense to the minimal sound, trusting my chakra field to find the position of the enemy team. I wasn't able to sense their nature affinity with my sensor ability, though I had heard that experience shinobi could, but I knew enough to notice how weak their presence was. Probably weapon or hand-to-hand specialists then.

            My mind raced for a plan as soon as I saw them. I had practiced against Shikaku how to think fast on my feet. He said not analyze too much or too little - to plan as I saw it, otherwise I'd just be stuck on what to do like always. I saw two girls with their hands wrapped with bandages and a boy with a chokutō strapped to his back. My body automatically jumped toward the weapon user while Ren and Chitarō followed my silent instruction to deal with the other ones.

            As the Ninjutsu specialist of my team with the element of surprise on my side, it made for me to go against the Kenjutsu specialist. My hands blurred into hand-seals before my feet reached the ground under us.

            The ashy-blond-haired girl of the other team was the first one to notice us, but it was too late by then. My fingers found their final position and I opened my mouth to release a large gust of air.

            "Fūton: Shinkuhā (Vacuum Blast)!"

            The three of them were caught on the enormous windy wave that followed, but the boy was the one most injured by the invisible cuts. Ren took advantage of the dark-haired girl's confusion and threw a barrage of shuriken at her. Chitarō ran forward, slashing the blonde with his katana in a wide arc.

            I concentrated on the heavily-breathing boy in front of me. I could tell by his bulging, scarred arms that Kenjutsu had been beaten into him, so I took a jump back and prepared for another Ninjutsu attack. Most techniques of the same affinity used similar hand-seals, which made practicing their speed easy. I flew through another set of hand-seals before the boy had even reached me.

            "Fūton: Kazekiri no Jutsu (Wind Cutter)," I said, bringing my index fingers together, pointing them at the boy as one would do with an arrow.

            The invisible slash was deeper this time, cutting into the enemy's stomach with vengeance. He tumbled back in obvious pain. Wind release was one of the most brutal affinities. It seemed harmless by definition, but was sharp and quick, not to mention discreet. It was easier to avoid a water whip than a wind blast.

            I cracked my fingers, trying to get the stiff feeling out of my hands. The Wind Cutter technique released chakra from the tip of my index fingers, always leaving them rigid. Most techniques that conducted chakra from the hands did that, but you got used to it with time.

            Ren had already finished with the dark-haired girl and managed to keep her quiet by trapping her in an illusion. I glanced at Chita, finding his body ducking a spinning kick. The ashy-blond was obviously the best in her team, for despite the gash on her shoulder and thigh, she still kept on going without giving up.

            I formed the ox seal, followed by the dragon. This technique was one of the easiest ones and not very powerful, so many people avoided using it. I found it useful as an assassination method, though. With my index and middle fingers directed towards the blonde, I quickly made my chakra run as fast as possible through me, releasing it as lightning.

            "Raiton: Raiha no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)!" A electric current shot through the very tips of my fingers, snapping towards the unsuspecting girl. I hadn't made my chakra as effective as possible, not aiming to kill her, but it still reached her neck with a crack and instantly made her fall unconscious like a broken puppet whose strings had been cut.

            Chitarō turned in my direction, "Thanks. She was annoying with her kick-and-punch katas."

            I smiled in agreement. Some Taijutsu specialists could be quite irritating when you were a weapon user. Well, from what I could see - Kenjutsu really wasn't my thing. _Really._ My weaponry was restricted to kunai and shuriken.

            "Found their rabbit," Ren announced cheerfully, taking a scroll out of the dark-haired girl's pouch. She was still staring without seeing, which made me conclude that she was trapped inside the illusion and would be for awhile. Ren wasn't as good as Chitarō in Ken or Taijutsu, nor did he care for Ninjutsu like I did, but he could maintain many Genjutsu techniques with no hand-seals.

            I went closer, observing the closed scroll. Ren was right. A storage scroll, I realized by the marking holding it closed. I could make one with a blank scroll, but had decided against it for this exam. Most storage seals could hold objects, food and water perfectly, but few - modified ones - managed to keep living beings well. A corpse, ok, but living, breathing beings? They rarely came out _breathing_.

            "What do we do?" Ren questioned, holding the bunny the scruff.

            Chitarō, who had been busy tying a rope around the enemy team to hold them in case they woke up, came closer to us.

            "I could chop its head off," he suggested, not sounding disturbed by his own suggestion.

            "Leave it to me," I found myself saying, though I was in no hurry to kill anything. It simply seemed cruel to kill it with a weapon. "I'll send a lighting blade through its brain. It'll be quicker."

            They nodded, understanding my need for no cruelty. We were ninja, but an emotionless shinobi would only end up dead. Sometimes, feeling scared and desperate was the best way out of a situation.

            "Raiton: Raiha no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)," I murmured as if in respect. A snapping sound and the bunny died without struggling. His tiny body merely went limp in Ren's arms and I relaxed.

            _Definitely an assassination technique_ , I told myself, cracking my stiff fingers.

            "I'll mind transfer to a bird and find the direction of the tower. Take care of my body," Ren told us, sitting down and concentrating.

            "It's still night, so we should take advantage of it. Most teams will be resting for now, especially since it's the first to second day. They aren't desperate yet. We'll fine," Chita concluded, mostly talking to himself. He liked to voice his plans like that and I let him.

            I put the dead baby rabbit in the storage scroll it was before, relieved with its disappearance. As I gathered our own responsibility from Ren's arms, I almost could imagine not having killed a living being.

            It wasn't the first thing killed by my hands. I had been on C-ranked missions outside of Konoha. If we wanted to eat meat instead of horrible ration bars, we had to snap some animal necks. I hadn't, however, murdered a human as of yet. I knew it would be different. Small mammals or birds struggled if they saw us coming or felt pain for a few minutes, yes, but they were inconsequential to our lives in a way. They were born, reproduced and died.

            Humans had families. They had relatives who cared about them and memories of happy times. They'd see our faces moments before dying and register it as an assassin's face. Their death would be different, though the action itself would be the same. I would, perhaps, use my lightning blades and send an electric current to their brain. And like broken dolls, they'd never get up again.

            I wondered if all of them would feel much like I did when I died. Overwhelmed by the pain, confused by their surrounding with a vague satisfaction for the end. If they would think, just as I did while lying down on my own blood puddle, that their cause of death wasn't all that ugly and their injuries and problems weren't, after all, so bad. I wondered if only I was the sick fuck who thought all that when dying.


	17. The Third Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Third Part of the Chūnin Exam commences and shit gets real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, thank you so much for the comments! They make my day even if it's just one tiny-teensy opinion, really! Love it! 
> 
> I take a long time to post here, because I keep forgetting the story here in AO3 is not on the same page as FF.net. If you just can't take my laziness anymore, search for it on the other site. It's under the same author and everything. Sorry!
> 
> (though I do wish FF.net had chapter summaries as an option. I'm starting to love the shit I write on those summaries hahahahaha)  
> (Forgive me for any typos or awkward grammar structure. I'm a procrastinator, incluing revising my own work. I'll get to it someday. Promise.)
> 
> Now, onto the chapter!

            "Aniki? The hell?" was the first thing Shikaku heard.

            The Nara heir smirked at the three confused faces. Oh, waiting for his younger brother's team was worth it if only to see their wide eyes. He had always been amused by people's reactions, after all.

            "Well, a superior is supposed to greet you upon your arrival," Shikaku said as if it was an everyday occurrence, disinterestedly looking at his blunt nails.

            Ren laughed. An expected response, if anything. Shikaku didn't think that the younger Yamanaka would be put out for more than a couple of minutes. His friend's little brother was much like his older sibling - too damn accepting of everything.

            "Sakumo-sensei gave you permission to greet us in his place?" Ah, he went right for the throat. "Man, you've got balls of metal under these pants."

            Shikaku's smirk got wider as innocent, tiny Kumi blushed to the roots of his hair. He had been quietly observing with a confused frown, but his expression looked much better with his cheeks red in embarrassment.

            "Idiot," Chitarō reprimanded his teammate with an elbow to the gut. Ren grunted, but remained otherwise fine and grinning. His younger brother's hand patted the smallest Genin with a care that Shikaku had seen his sibling offer to few people.

            Ren turned to the blond, "Sorry, Kumi-chan. Was that too crude for you?"

            Kumi looked away. His eyes were a pretty interesting color, much like those kaleidoscopes sold as toys, mused Shikaku. Then again, his favorite puzzle was interesting in itself.

            While Chitarō chided Ren for his incorrigible attitude and Kumi looked on seeming amused, Shikaku took his time to assess the younger teens. For a rookie Genin coming out of the Forest of Death, they seemed quite fine. Chitarō had a thin cut on his cheek and Ren was covered in dust and dirt. Kumi didn't seem to notice the slight burns on the tips of his fingers - most likely a lightning technique as the Nara heir was aware of the blonde's elemental affinities.

            "C'mon," Shikaku called, motioning with his hand to the door on the far back. "You have time to rest before being called for the next part."

            Shikaku wasn't the least surprised when Ren let out a whoop in celebration. Much less when his brother rolled his eyes at the childish action. Kumi's excited hops, as if the blond was the baby rabbit he was holding, did manage to make him smirk.

            Puzzle, indeed.

* * *

 

            The third part of the Exam was exactly as I envisioned. Konoha would be hosting a tournament one month from now, which supposedly gave us enough time to train and get to know our enemies.

            "Mii-chan!" My brother shouted when I got home this evening. His arms wounded their way around my waist.

            "Nii-san," I managed to gasp, feeling my feet dangling over the ground.

            "Oh, sorry," he smiled at me innocently. I rolled my eyes at him.

            I took my shoes off, glad to finally be home. Quickly testing the area around me, my chakra senses told me of no visitant. I had become more tolerant of Kushina's presence, but her face wasn't the one I wanted to see after spending five days in a tower in the Forest of Death.

            "How was it? Are you hurt? Do you need food? Want me to get some bandages? I'll be right back."

            I held the back of Minato's shirt before he could slink away. Typical reaction.

            "I'm fine, Minato-nii." And, as I said it, I realized how true this statement was. I'd been anxious and nervous about these two parts for weeks now, but I was finally free of it. There was the third part, of course, and I'd be sweating bullets in a month, but at least Ren and Chitarō's safety wouldn't depend on my uselessly thin arms.

            My older brother gave me one of his soft smiles, his arms once again making their way around my figure. He sighed against the crown of my head with utter relief. I wondered how much sleep he'd managed these past days.

            "Welcome home, Kumi."

            "I'm home."

* * *

 

            The month went on quicker than I wished it to.

            I didn't have a fixed schedule, working on a little bit of everything. My first opponent was from Kumo, which made the probability of him having a lightning affinity very high. I insisted on having Sakumo-sensei train Ren and Chitarō instead of me, because he could teach my all lightning techniques he wanted, but what I really needed to do was to expand my Wind repertoire.

            On Tuesdays and Thursday I read through detailed scrolls on elemental manipulation, aiming toward a better understanding of my dual affinity. I usually stayed over a flat rock, soaking in the sun's rays and sometimes looking up to see Ren and Chita's progress. While both had gotten the hang of their affinities for a few weeks now, only the former managed to make it battle-effective.

            "I don't care about my Earth affinity, sensei," he'd argue every other day. "My hands are busy with my katana."

            In a way, Chita was right. He was the best of us with weaponry. I couldn't even swing a sword without poking someone in the eye. But as a First-Response Team, it was expected of us to be all-rounded - which undoubtedly included knowing elemental techniques. I didn't mind one bit - Ninjutsu _was_ one of my specialties, after all.

            (I admit dreading the day Sakumo-sensei decided to focus on Kenjutsu.)

            Other than reading about chakra and learning a couple of Wind jutsus, I spend my time with Suzaku-sensei at his home. We busied ourselves going through most battle seals and perfecting the usage of my original seal, _grasshopper._ Shikaku's frequent visits came in handy. He was better at controlling shadows than his brother, who didn't care much for it despite knowing as every good Nara should. Avoiding his shadow-binding technique made me an expert with grasshopper and I was pretty confident in my dodging abilities.

            Minato dragged me to an empty training ground at least once a day to give me new tips of chakra sensing. Apparently he'd been bothering Jiraiya-sensei when the man got a break on training Hizashi, Fugaku and another Genin whose name I didn't know. My brother didn't seem to mind being substituted for the Exam too much, but then again, he was already a Chūnin. Shikaku complained about Umino Tetsuo every time we met up, though. It _was_ quite funny to see the fifteen-year-old upset over being left out.

            "You'd be going through the Exam all over again if you hadn't passed last year," I had told him one day. It had become increasingly harder not to laugh at his disgruntled face.

            He had looked at me without his usual smirk. I hadn't been able to contain the little upturn of my lips at his expression. Ever since then, Shikaku had reverted to how we were before our frequent meeting at Suzaku-sensei's home - quiet and observing. I often wondered if I had said something wrong - _obviously_ \- but with the end of the Exam quickly approaching, I didn't have much time to ponder about it.

            It was with a sinking feeling in my stomach that I woke up to the fated day.

* * *

 

            "My name is Akimichi Chū and I'll the proctor of the third part of the Chūnin Exam."

            The man in front of us looked every bit of his Akimichi heritage. His muscles were highly developed, bulging under his clothes. I'd bet my money that he'd been a chubby kid. No one from that clan was average-sized when younger, but you could always expect them to become scarily built when grown up. Their salvation from being viewed as Konoha's intimidation guard was their friendly expression and belly-deep laughs.

            "Everything is allowed. The fight ends one of the participants is incapable of continuing or when I say so. Without further ado, let's begin. First fight: Inuzuka Tsume versus Shinji Aiko!"

            We all moved up to the waiting area above. I was surprised by how many of us there were. Why hadn't they thought of making a preliminary round as in the _Naruto series?_ There were four teams from Konoha, one from Iwa and one from Kumo. There hadn't been many foreigners in first place, but this was unexpectedly strange.

            "Here, the order of the fights," Ren offered a sheet of paper.

            I glanced at it. I'd seen it before, of course, to have an idea of who I was going to fight should I win the first one. The order was a little unconventional. I was almost sure it wouldn't go the way it was written down.

            I looked at the arena to see Tsume and Kuromaru growling furiously at Shinji Aiko. She was the kunoichi who entered my brother's team in his place for this exam. I heard from Shikaku - before he decided to become silent, anyway - that she used to be in the same Genin team as Umino Tetsuo, but both had been separated due to Exam regulations. Their third teammate's end remained a mystery to me.

            It soon became obvious that Tsume and Aiko were evenly matched. Both specialized in hand-to-hand combat, even if Tsume fought with her canine partner. Sakumo-sensei had drilled into us that we were supposed to show the best of our abilities. The proctors and the Hokage - who ultimately decided which one of us would become Chūnin - wouldn't be very impressed with bull heading against one another.

            "C'mon, Tsume," Kihito murmured beside me. He had grown another good five centimeters this past weeks and I stood under his shoulder. With disappointment, I realized that I was shorter everyone in the waiting booth.

            Chitarō clicked his tongue, "She should give up."

            "Why?" Mikoto questioned, tilting her head sideways. I could see the subtle differences in her demeanor due to Utatane-sensei's harsh training methods. Her previously delicate hands were covered in callouses and her eyes had a hard edge that hadn't been there before.

            "They're too evenly matched. Unless one of them gives way to the other, they won't be able to demonstrate their full capabilities," my black-haired teammate explained, not taking his analytical eyes off the fight occurring below us.

            True to his word, the first combat ended in a draw with both contestants knocked out.

            "Second fight: Namikaze Kumi versus Kita Shui!" The proctor called.

            A dark-skinned boy jumped from the railing, not bothering with the stairs. I felt Chita's hand patting my head and heard Ren's cheerfull " _Good luck, Kumi-chan!"_ before I went down the arena.

            My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I looked up at the spectators in the stands. Even the Hokage was paying utmost attention. I tried to find brother's blond head in the sea of brunettes, but it was impossible.

            _Calm down_ , I told myself. I had been a meek coward during my first life, but there was no reason to cower in this second one. Many people had spent their time making sure of my strength. The least I could do was win.

            It was easier said than done. My heart still felt as if it could explode out of my chest.

            "Scared?" The boy in front of me asked. His face looked strangely familiar and he must've seen me frowning, for he kept on saying, "Ya gonna call your brother, baby?"

            With a startle I realized two things. The first one was that it had been his voice to mock me before the first part of the Exam, calling me a _she_ and a baby. The second thing was _This had been my brother's opponent during his own Chūnin Exam._

            Great. I was about to fight a Kumo shinobi out for revenge.

            "Begin," Akimichi Chū said, jumping back a few meters.

            Kita Shui wasted no time. He hadn't changed much, I noticed, grateful for my memory. His fighting form was the same as last year at Suna, though his arms and legs had gotten noticeably more powerful. He no longer was the youngest participant, which no doubt gave him a boost of confidence.

            I dodged one of his kicks without much difficulty. Shikaku's shadow chasing had been a good form of training as I didn't even need to use my grasshopper seal to avoid Kita Shui's attacks.

            I observed as his frustration grew.

            "Attack me, goddamnit!"

            Taunts never made me act recklessly. Huh. One good thing about having been bullied all my other life, I guess. I'd rather be depressed with the insults, believing than to be true, than get angry with them. Who'd have thought.

            His hands flew through a set of hand-seals, but I had been expecting that. I was no Uchiha, so nothing was ever in slow motion to me, but I knew enough about chakra theory and my own elemental affinities to recognize most jutsus used by Genin and Chūnin.

            When Kita Shui ended his set of hand-seals, I was finished with mine.

            "Raiton: Raikyū (Lightning Ball)!"

            "Fūton: Daitoppā (Great Breakthrough)!"

            His expression alone was worth the effort to get at this level of Ninjutsu. Both jutsus collided, but mine had elemental advantage and was ten times bigger. He was thrown meters away until his back hit the wall of the arena.

            "Shit," I heard him curse. "Shit!"

            And as he ran toward me with not plan in mind, it became clear why he hadn't managed to become a Chūnin despite being clearly skilled. He was too immature and too hotheaded, which could cost his life in a real fight.

            Kita Shui would be feeling ashamed for awhile longer, because I dodged his furious punch with a simple head movement and knocked him out with a kick to his chin.

            "Winner: Namikaze Kumi."

            I was taken by an unexpected wave of contentment in spite of all the violence. Probably this world's influence. It had made me nuts.

* * *

 

            The Exam kept on going just as exciting.

            Hyūga Hiashi easily won against a Iwa-nin name Abe Ittan and his twin brother managed to defeat Kihito in one of the longest Taijutsu fights I'd ever seen. Mikoto fought against Chōza, but lost after putting on a good pyrotechnical show (Uchiha and their fire jutsus). Chitarō chopped Iwusuki Nonoshi's hand off, showing no remorse on his face beside his eyes, and Inoichi broke his wrist while fighting the other Iwa-nin, Watanabe Tsuchiko.

            "At least you won," Ren had tried to cheer his older brother while a medic-nin mended the broken bones. He was shoved away toward his fight against a Kumo shinobi named Abumi Kurui. Like his name suggested, Kurui ( _a Japanese word for confusion_ , my English mind supplied) seemed confused with pretty much everything and Ren won with no delays.

            The last fight of the first bracket was Umino Tetsuo against the last Kumo-nin, Yotsuki Kiyoi. Umino-san lost spectacularly against Yotsuki's Kenjutsu and had to be taken off the arena by paramedics.

            "We'll begin the second bracket of fights," the proctor said, seemingly animated. Even people in the stands, half civilian half shinobi, hadn't lost their excitement despite the sheer number of fights this afternoon promised. "First fight: Hyūga Hiashi versus Akimichi Chōza!"

            I had been cheering for Chōza, who was always gentle when we met, but the Hyūga heir managed to win after closing the Akimichi's tenketsu points. At least Chōza had shown his abilities during both combats, making a promotion possible.

            Chitarō, who hadn't spent too much energy in his first fight, left the arena sweating and panting in his second one against Hyūga Hizashi. His ability with his katana was phenomenal after a year under Sakumo-sensei teaching, but Hizashi-san had been trained since birth in hand-to-hand combat and found more opening than Chita would care to admit later. All of us had much to improve yet, after all.

            Ren and Inoichi's fight was introduced with uproars from the crowd. The brothers were alike and not. They were known as talkative and friendly yet perfect in deception. But while Inoichi - much like everyone in the Ino-Shika-Chō - specialized in his clan's techniques, Ren distinguished himself in Genjutsu and the few Earth-based techniques he knew for direct combat. I clapped when the fight ended with a sense of disappointed for it ended in double knock-out.

            And I finally went down to my second combat.

            "Third fight: Namikaze Kumi versus Yotsuki Kiyoi."

            When I looked up at the stands this time, I did find my brother waving madly at me. A redhead sat beside him, but I didn't ponder over it too much. It wasn't exactly the time to get upset. Although my mind supplied something or another about Kushina being taken out of the third part of the Exam for outside reasons.

            (I wonder if her seal had been acting up.)

            (Figures she'd be sitting beside my brother.)

            My nerves were much better controlled, but I had seen Yotsuki's superior abilities when compared against his teammate. It became clear as soon as the proctor said " _Start"_ that Yotsuki Kiyoi was different from Kita Shui. For one, he was one of the few white-skinned Kumo-nin, which usually indicated a different affinity. As I had only seen his Kenjutsu in the first fight, I couldn't be sure of my hunch.

            I didn't want to spend too much energy in this fight, given that I would fight one the Hyūga twins if I won. My best plan of action would be to avoid his sword's slashes with grasshopper like I spent the month training to do and send a mid-ranged technique toward him in a moment of surprise.

            It went better in my head.

            Yotsuki managed to distract me by sending a stray kunai in my direction in the middle of his usual katas. I predictably avoided it, but a sword had been expecting me in the way I dodged. Pain exploded in my right forearm, but at least I still had when compared with Chitarō's opponent. The only thing that kept my head over my shoulders next was my thinking to use grasshopper and jump five meters back.

            _Thank God for Suzaku-sensei and his insistence in creating a new seal_ , I said to myself, gasping for air. I f this dragged on for too long, I would lose blood and faint, which would be my loss either way. I needed to end this as soon as possible.

            Problem was: Yotsuki was well aware of that and was in no hurry.

            "Feeling it yet?" Yotsuki asked me with his face carefully blank. He wasn't like his hotheaded teammate or even the perpetually confused one. His fighting wasn't dirty, but effective. He reminded me of Chitarō in a way.

            "Feeling what?"

            It was getting harder and harder to keep standing. My arms weren't the most essential thing in my hand-to-hand fighting. My style used my legs as the base, but my arms were in some katas and gave me the sense of balance I required. With my right forearm currently out of commission, Taijutsu was no longer a viable option.

            "The poison in your system, of course," his voice finally acquired a mocking edge.

            I didn't fall prey to his words. Sakumo-sensei had taught us not to get desperate in the face of possible poisoning. Most quick acting poisons were felt within the minute, which meant that either Yotsuki was bluffing or his poison would take awhile longer to take me down.

            A small part of my mind was panicking, though. The idea of dying from poisoning in the Chūnin Exam left me breathless for exact three seconds.

            I thought about what Chita would do in this situation. He was our strategist, so it'd be logical to think like him. Shikaku's voice telling me to keep it simple and not over think went through my mind.

            _Keep it simple_.

            I made a show of buckling my knees, as if fainting. Yotsuki bit my bait and run forward like most would, prepared to end this fight. I activated the grasshopper seal stuck to the soles of my feet and jumped toward him faster than he'd reach me. His surprised face was only a blur as I flew through two hand-seals-  ox, then dragon - and pointed my fingers at his neck.

            "Raiton: Raihan no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)."

            Electric currents snapped toward his neck, immediately rendering him unconscious. I had made it weak enough to only knock him out and my control was practically perfect, but I took my time to check if his chest was rising still before dropping to my knees. I didn't want to be a murderer.

            (Not yet.)

            "Winner: Namikaze Kumi."

            The crowd went crazy, though it became nothing but silent after a couple of silence. The world around me dimmed and I felt the vague pain of hitting my face on the ground.

            My last thought before blacking out was that _There probably had been poison on that blade, after all_.

* * *

 

            I woke up to Minato's worried face, which shouldn't surprise me.

            "Mii-chan," he said, surprisingly tame. I had tensed in anticipation of his usually strangling-worth hugs. My brother simply put his hand over mine. "How are you feeling?"

            I took a second to think about it. My mouth was dry like a Suna desert and my forearm ached under the bandages, but I felt otherwise fine.

            "Tired," I ended up saying. My voice confirmed my status.

            Minato smiled, "I'd think so."

            I looked around. I was in a white room with other empty cots. An infirmary, then.

            "I'm so proud of you," he told me, a wicked smile starting to turn his lips up. "You kicked ass out there."

            I felt my cheeks getting hot, but a smile formed on my lips to show my contentment at being praised.

            "Your teammates are at the closing ceremony," Minato said, "But they'll be here soon. They wanted to congratulate you."

            I nodded in understanding, before realizing, "Oh, who won, then?"

            "Hiashi did," he said, sounding pleased and annoyed at the same time if that was possible.

            "Uh, ok?" I made, confused.

            He palmed his face, sighing.

            "Sorry, it's just... Hizashi is my teammate, but he needed to confront his brother one more time. I thought it would be good for both of them. Fugaku said I should just mind my own business."

            "Ah, where was Fugaku-san today? He did participate in the second part, didn't he? And I haven't seen him around for awhile now." Safer to change subject.

            Minato nodded, also relieved at not focusing on the entire Hyūga twin-rivalry.

            "An Ame-nin poisoned him in the Forest. It destroyed some muscles tissues and no medic-nin managed to re-grow them with Iryo-ninjutsu, so he's been hospitalized the entire month. He's going crazy stuck in the bed for such a long time."

            "Poor Fugaku-san," I said, barely containing my smile at the mental image of him disturbing each nurse who entered the room.

            Minato clapped his hands, "Well, why don't you sleep a little? To your luck, _your_ poison was designed to give you fatigue and deplete you of your chakra. It's been taken out your system, so you won't die of chakra deficiency, but you should still be tired."

            He looked at me with a stern expression and I giggled.

            Trust Minato to be overprotective even when I was fine already. Well, with an aching forearm, fatigued muscles and blinking in drowsiness, but otherwise fine.

            I had the vague impression of hearing Ren's voice in the hallway, shouting one thing or another in that loud voice of his, but my eyes had already closed to be sure.

* * *

 

            _Dear Kumi,_

_Congratulations on your promotion, sweetie. I'm sure you'll be an excellent Chūnin._

_Do try to be careful, though. Your brother would die of heart attack should anything happen to you._

_With love,_

_Mom_


	18. The Easy Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later, Kumi is still pretty useless. At least, that's how he feels all the damn time.
> 
> Or:
> 
> In which Kumi most definitely does not pine over a hot guy, but most definitely learns how to comfort a child in times of distress. Life at its finest, he supposes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a two-year time skip, guys. Just to make sure we're on the same page here.

           "Lion, Deer, you finished?" A rough voice called from the earpiece I was wearing.

            Seeing that Chitarō was busy wiping the blood off his sword - and, really, wouldn't bother answering anyway - I took my time to speak.

            "Target eliminated. No major injuries. Ready to receive further instructions."

            "Wow, protocol is such a pain in the ass, even two years later, isn't it?" Ren's voice commented, sounding impressed with the fact itself.

            I heard Sakumo-sensei sigh. He was proud of how far along we'd come, I was sure, but our antics still reminded him of our age from time to time. Well, he had an almost four-year-old child at home, how bad could we be? Though Kakashi was such a controlled and amiable child...

            "Let's meet up in our camp before discussing _any_ protocol," sensei said with a chiding note to his voice. I could almost feel Ren wince.

            Chitarō stood up from his crouching position. He was snickering quietly as not to make noise on the earpiece. I couldn't tell if he was smiling as the mask covered his face, but his dark brown eyes were twinkling in the fading sunset and I knew the Nara clan enough to know that his lips were twisted in a smirk.

            He made a signal toward the general direction of where we had set up camp last night and I nodded in agreement. Silent as shadows, we moved through the thick foliage and I was just grateful that this mission was over. I loved my team and everything, but being the First Response meant being called in unexpected hours and being ready to go in five minutes at most. I had a handful of storage scrolls at home, prepared to be taken in case I needed to leave as quickly as possible.

            We took ten minutes longer going back than usual had we been close to Konoha. The trees close to the Land of Hot Water were thick and full of blocking branches, which made our journey more bothersome and tiring. After such a long day, I only wanted to go back home and fall dead asleep.

            "We're here," Chitarō announced, just in case sensei and Ren hadn't reached there before us. As the later stuck his head out of the hedge we decided to camp behind, this was not the case.

            "Any of you hurt?" He asked, giving us an asserting glance. There were bandages around his right shoulder, but no bleeding, so I deemed him good enough to go.

            Chitarō clicked his tongue in annoyance, "Worry about yourself first, _Hawk_."

            Ren huffed and went back to his own mending. I rolled my eyes at them and went over to deliver the scroll to Sakumo-sensei.

            "Here, Captain," I said with my utmost serious expression.

            Sensei gave me an unimpressed stare at my cheekiness. He held the scroll in his hands, rolling it around to make sure everything was in place though my seals hadn't failed us as of yet. Not to mention that it was a simple storage scroll specifically designed to hold corpses.

            _Corpses,_ I grimaced mentally. Even after two years of my promotion to Chūnin, I still couldn't think about dead bodies without flinching. Sensei said that killing never got easier - as it shouldn't. But, as long as we got our job done, nobody cared if we were vomiting our insides out in disgust afterwards.

            "We are inside familiar territory, so let's not waste another night out in the woods. If we set a good pace, we should be able to reach Konoha in five hours or so. Gather your things and c'mon," sensei said, standing up from the rock he had been sitting on.

            There wasn't much too pick up, as we usually didn't leave our most important belongings in the camp. A couple of food packages and the only tent we bothered to set up this time. Ren was bickering with Chita as usual, so I let them to their devices.

            The incoming night was cool on my bare arms. I had gotten used to my new uniform, even if the mask was suffocating from time to time. The pants were like the ones I used to wear, but the tank top, metal arm guards and grey flak jacket were uncomfortable at first. They made my Taijutsu seem stiff in the beginning, especially because I was used to bending more than most did while fighting. After so many months, though, they were like second skin.

            "Urgh, haven't they ever thought about making this mask in a more breathable material?" Ren complained like he always did. His hawk-like mask was painted in a menacing-looking way - he looked anything but when he opened his mouth to whine.

            "One would think that after a couple of years you'd be used already, you big baby," Chita replied, uncaring of our best friend's suffering.

            Sakumo-sensei decided to add his input, "Frankly speaking, though, these masks are really well designed. They're practically unbreakable despite our line of work."

            "Hah, Kumi doesn't care about these details," Chitarō said and, by his teasing tone, I knew that nothing good would come out of his mouth in the next few seconds. "He only wishes that his mask and codename wasn't Deer."

            So Chitarō was Lion and I was Deer. Sue me.

            Ren laughed his heart out, almost hitting face-first against an unexpected tree.

            "Even Hokage-sama knows what's going on," he poked fun at me.

            I sighed, already used to this particular line of tease. Both of them - Ren more than Chita, really - had been teasing me about liking Shikaku ever since we received our masks. I didn't like the Nara heir, honestly. The most we did was play shogi once or twice a week when we managed to meet up during my Fūinjutsu classes. I couldn't fathom why my teammates would think I had a crush on him. Not to mention that Shikaku was only there to keep company and talk to his cousin.

            And the Nara heir was womanizer. He'd never look at a guy, much less me.

            I barely managed not to slip down the branch I jumped from. I shouldn't let my thoughts stray away. This was a dangerous game I was playing and I wished my best friends would stop teasing me with this idea, because it made me think of things I shouldn't wonder about.

            "Both of you, pipe it down," sensei said, sounding genuinely tired. His broad shoulders were slumped and even his chakra seemed sad to my sensor abilities.

            We didn't blame Sakumo-sensei for his impatience in our last three missions. His wife, Natsumi, had fallen ill and Kakashi was still just a kid. We could understand his need to be home as much as possible, but, in the end, he couldn't get away too much from work. If we were a normal team instead of a First Response one, we'd be able to choose most of our missions and plan our schedule. As it was, we were always free or training until called to Hokage-sama's office or to the ANBU headquarters. All the stress from going on missions, having a young child and a sick wife was getting to him.

            We stayed quiet the rest of the way and the only sound was from the leaves rustling in the wind. My heart was aching in my chest with each step we took toward our home. I knew that Sakumo-sensei's wife wouldn't live for much longer, even though he hadn't told us what was wrong with her. I knew all the problems that would plague my teacher in the future, but I never spoke about it with anyone, because people would think me crazy.

            I wished I could take away all the pain that my beloved people would feel in the future, but I couldn't. I could only drown in grief and guilt.

* * *

 

            "Good job, guys," Sakumo-sensei said, taking his wolf mask off. His silver hair was as wild as ever, but his eyes lacked its usual warmth. "Rest until our next mission. No training this time, Ren."

            I waited for my best friend's whine, but he was surprisingly obedient. He merely nodded in agreement and shoved his spare uniform in his locker. I moved my mask sideways on my head, puzzled. Even though sensei had been down in the last couple of months, Ren had tried to maintain his upbeat attitude for everybody's sake really.

            Sakumo-sensei disappeared in a whirlwind of leaves and dust. Chitarō sighed beside me. He was sprawled on the thin bench in the middle of the locker room, his torso littered with little cuts from the previous mission in Grass Country.

            "I hope Natsumi-san gets better soon, because I can't take this atmosphere anymore. It's too troublesome."

            "Wow, how selfish of you," Ren said in an unimpressed voice, his back still turned to us.

            Chita sat up, looking irritated, "Ok, what's your problem, _Miss_ Hawk?"

            Ren spared him a glance.

            " _My_ problem is that sensei can't even spend time with us anymore because his wife is _dying_ and all you can think about is how the _atmosphere is killing you_?"

            "Natsumi-san is _not_ dying," Chitarō replied. His eyes hardened with each word spoken. Between the three of us, he was the one who spent the most time with our teacher's wife, while we busied ourselves with Kakashi's demands.

            "Even you can't face the truth."

            "SHE IS NOT DYING!" Chitarō lost it, getting up and shoving Ren against the lockers. I moved between them, putting a hand in their chest, but all of my 135 centimeters were nothing compared to their 160 ones. Ren easily moved me out of the way.

            "She's been on the hospital ever since she collapsed two months ago and there's no sign of her being cleared anytime soon. Sensei can't even eat right and Kakashi cries himself to sleep every damn night. Do you really think that everything is gonna be alright?"

            Not only was it painful for Chitarō to hear it, but each word was punctuated with a jab of Ren's index finger against his abdomen. I swallowed the tears that threatened to come up - this wasn't the time to be my usual crybaby self.

            "Stop trying to hurt each other," I pleaded, looking up at their frowning faces. "Everyone has been stressed, there's no need to shout, guys."

            _We were just fine six hours ago, teasing each other and stuff,_ I told myself. Except we hadn't. Not really. Even when Ren had tried to cover the silence when it stretched for too long, there still was this ominous cloud handing over our heads like a snake ready to lunge.

            "Please," I asked again when they showed no signs of backing down.

            A entire minute of glaring before both of them even thought about stepping away. Chitarō was the first one to crumble, sitting back on the bench with the sadness of a widow whose husband had just died. Ren followed, sliding down against the locker until he hit the floor tile.

            "Sorry," they muttered to one another and I couldn't decide which one of them sounded more exhausted.

            I patted their heads, trying to assure them that everything _would_ be alright.

            _It wouldn't._

            The guilt had been simpler to carry when the future had only been a faraway notion. Nowadays it was easier to stay quiet and let this burning ball of anguish inside me litter my chest with burns and heartache.

            Ren stood up, breaking me out of my dark thoughts. He gathered his things and waved at us with the most depressing hand movement I ever saw.

            "See you tomorrow at Chita's house?" He said, posing it as a question.

            Chita nodded, "Sure. Good night."

            A brief pause.

            "And I'm sorry, Ren."

            A deep breath.

            "It's ok. I get it. I hope you're right too."

            And that's how our saddest mission to date ended - with my teacher and captain worrying himself to death and my best friends filled with a sense of despair. My silent agony seemed like a tiny price to pay for all this mess.

            "Come to my house tonight, Kumi," Chitarō suggested when I finished packing my belongings. My spare uniform needed cleaning, but the other was good for the mission.

            I looked at him. His face was still young, not seeming a day over his fourteenth birthday. He'd be fifteen soon, I knew, but it was easier to picture his smooth cheeks and his childish freckles than his tired eyes and tensed jaw.

            "Ok, let's go, then," I tried to smile briefly at him.

            I wondered if Minato had returned from his own mission in Suna, but I could warn him of my safe return tomorrow. Not to mention the chances of him being with Kushina in one of their _private Fūinjutsu classes_. They had those all the time - and though I didn't doubt their existence, as my brother supposedly became a seal-master in the future - some lessons' hours were fishy at best.

            I sighed to myself. Well, at least someone in my daily life was having a good time.

* * *

 

            It was way past midnight when we finally entered the Nara district's main house, but the lights in the living room were lit up nonetheless. I saw Chitarō wave to the guard standing on the roof. There was always a guard in the entrance of the district and one near the main house. Chitarō, in particular, thought it ridiculous, as all member of his immediate family - even his mother - were Chūnin-level or higher. I had once told him that it wasn't wrong of his father to place a guard near their place. Head of clans were, after all, had a big, red targets plastered on their foreheads.

            I took off my shoes with a wince. My muscles were already getting sore. I had been experimenting with a new type of seal a few hours before being requested for the mission and the price was showing itself.

            "Aniki," Chita said, managing to sound bored and surprised at the same time like only a Nara could. "The hell you're doing up and about?"

            I entered the living room to find the older Nara brother sitting on his usual place in front of the low glass table. Unsurprisingly, a shogi board with its pieces in different places was laid out in front of him. His state, however, made me look away.

            I had seen half-naked people before. I lived with my brother in an one-room apartment and had had my fair walk-in accidents. And having missions like my team did meant that we slept in forest more than the contrary. I was proud of myself for being able to get dressed in front of these total of four people. It was easier to remember the taunts imprinted in my brain than my new appearance. There were times that this body didn't feel like _mine_ at all.

            Nothing prepared me for the vision of Shikaku reclining against the couch, his legs spread, but bent, and arms relaxing over his knees. Without a shirt. In boxers.

            I felt my cheeks heating up and wished desperately that I wasn't blushing. _I so was._ Admittedly, it was far simpler to ignore my best friends' teasing over my supposed crush when said person only met me every few days with an annoying smirk on his face and analytical eyes. I knew that I wouldn't be able to take the image of Shikaku - half naked, with a six pack and muscled arms - out of my head.

            _Maybe I'm reaching puberty in this lifetime_ , I thought, with dread. _Maybe it's not because of Shikaku. It may only be the situation._

            Too late to fake it, I noticed that both Nara brothers were looking at me with a smirk. Damn Naras.

            "Don't strut around shirtless, Aniki," Chita reprehended, even though I could tell by the crinkle in the corner of his eyes that he was amused shitless.

            Shikaku snorted.

            "Well, it _is_ my house," he said, before pausing. He took one good look at my beet red face and seemingly decided to keep his next comment to himself. Strange. The Nara heir was the smuggest guy I had the opportunity to meet and couldn't imagine him holding back of the chance of teasing anyone.

            Chitarō sighed, as if exasperated, "I will heat some leftover food that Kaa-san probably left. _Don't_ embarrass, Kumi, you bastard."

            Shikaku's smirk got even wider.

            "As if I'm able to embarrass anyone. I'm all sunshine and rainbows and shit."

            _Sure._

            My best friend rolled his eyes, taking his Lion mask off his head and throwing it on the armchair. As we had managed to dirty ourselves with blood this time around - and wasn't that uncommon? -, bath could wait for a little while. My stomach agreed with Chita's decision to heat up food.

            "Well, sit down," Shikaku called, indicating the floor on the other side of the low table.

            With a justifiable wary glance at his form, I obeyed. His muscles were even more impressive up close, but, then again, Shikaku was already, what, seventeen? Not that he had had my thin arms when he was my age. Well, at least my legs were stronger thanks to my taijutsu style. I didn't even have a thigh gap anymore. Small victories.

            "You could take a picture," Shikaku said. I looked up, startled and blushing and apologizing all at the same time. His voice and his face betrayed his amusement, though.

            "I just... Eh..."

            He put his chin on the palm of his hand, observing me with those unnerving, all-knowing eyes.

            "Nah, it's fine. Too troublesome to think too much over it. Damn hormones, probably," the Nara heir concluded. "I started chasing anything with legs under a skirt as soon as I became a Genin. Still do, as a matter of fact. Hmm, I'm probably not the best example of good behavior then."

            I let him ramble on. He did that a lot in a relaxed setting, I had noticed. Probably because his thoughts came too fast for his genius-like mind and, as they weren't put in order as in a mission situation, he simply started talking. There were days that Shikaku was quiet and some that he was absolutely unbearable. Who knew that even lazy, laidback Nara could be complicated. Must be rule number five or six of their clan or something.

            Then, again, there were times like this. Times were he spoke as if without thinking only to analyze your reactions. Shikaku was a smug, annoying genius. I tried not to let any of my emotions show on my face as his eyes flickered over mine.

            I wasn't surprised at his reveal. The fact that Shikaku was a womanizer wasn't a _secret_. He had more girlfriends a year than he could count in one hand. No boyfriends ever came into the picture, which made his preference very clear. Like I said, it was easier to ignore my team's teasing about crushes and whatnot when said person was away.

            It seemed childish of me to worry over crushes and one-sided love when the world was starting to fall apart at the seams. Who knew how many longer I had with my beloved people before everything started to go wrong? I knew, for a fact, that Kakashi wouldn't have his mother alive by his fifth birthday and his fourth was fast approaching.

            How much longer before the guilt started to seep too deep within? Would I be able to bear the thought of being responsible for so much for the next decade or so? I was _obligated_ to change the storyline. I could let it flow as it should. But, then, could I live with myself knowing that my friends and only family were suffering despite the possibility of avoiding it? In the end, I had to decide between two things: what was harder to live with - the guilt of not being able to change everything despite my knowledge or the anguish of seeing my beloved people die because I was too much of a coward to act?

            The people who interacted with me _alive_. They breathed, laughed and cried. They felt sadness and contentment. They had ideas and desires. They weren't _manga characters_. Their skin was soft or rough or scarred under my hands.

             "Kumi?" Shikaku called me. His voice sounded cautious, as if he was speaking to small animal.

            I glanced up from the tabletop. I had daydreamt once again.

            "Sorry," I said. "I was lost in thoughts."

            He took a couple of seconds looking through my being before replying, "I noticed. Well, why don't you play a match with me?"

            I nodded, even though shogi wasn't my favorite game in the world. I'd rather have something else to concentrate on.

            When Chitarō came back with two plates of food five minutes later, his eyes bloodshot red and puffy. He wasn't one to cry, but Natsumi-san was in the hospital and she was like a sweet Aunt to all of us - always ready to offer a quick snack and a smile. Chita was from a ninja family, so he knew loss, but much like killing, it never easier.

            (It never became easier to overcome loss; it only became simpler to truck it around with you.)

            I offered him a soft smile and his brother ruffled his hair. We fell into an comfortable silence, even though the downcast Chita, the half-naked Shikaku and the agony in me should've made the room too full of everything.

            If there was one thing I had learnt in this world was that, every so often, it was less complicated to breathe better with a room full of pained people. There was no judgment there.

* * *

 

             Kakashi's fourth birthday was spent in a hospital room. The young child didn't seem to mind, talking a mile a minute with his smiling mother. He was very perceptive for his age, of course, but I knew that only a ninja lifestyle would curb his excitement at everything.

            Ren baked a cake with my help and was presenting it proudly to the bedridden woman. My best friend was hopeless in the kitchen when making savory food, but the simple chocolate cake had turned out mostly alright with my instructions. Maybe there hope in the sweet path.

            Chitarō and Sakumo-sensei were obviously not trying to ruin the mood with their worry. They were the most grounded of us four and knew that the situation wasn't looking good so far. I tried to observe Natsumi-san symptoms, but I had hated the peak at iryo-ninjutsu I took a year ago. Ren was the one learning basic first aid and healing jutsus in our team. My chakra control would have been up for the task, but I loved sealing and learning new techniques too much. I was even thinking about creating my own.

            "How is she?" I heard Chita ask in the corner of the room. Natsumi wouldn't be able to pick it up with her civilian senses and Kakashi was too untrained to make much use of his advanced, clan-inherited hearing.

            Our teacher sighed. His shoulders were slouched.

            "The doctor says that there's nothing he can do. Her illness, whatever it is, is shutting her entire body system off. When her main organs fail her..." He stopped, unable to continue.

            "And there's really no way to reverse it?"

            "They aren't even sure of what is causing it. Tsunade left the village a little more than a year ago and refuses to come back. I sent her a summon myself, but she didn't answer."

            His voice sounded pained and I could fathom why. Sensei knew all three Sannin, as their ages were close enough to pass of as same generation comrades. Tsunade-sama's refusal to come back and help her friend in a critical situation probably hurt his already wounded heart. It also meant the inevitability of his wife's future. If the best medic wouldn't come back and try to heal her, who would?

            I knew that the Slug Princess wouldn't come back anytime soon. Her lover and brother had died during the Second Ninja War and the loss probably hit her hard. I vaguely tried to recall if she took Shizune with her while the girl was a child, as I had fuzzy images of seeing her interacting with Kakashi's generation. Perhaps Shizune's parents were alive until the Third War? She had been Dan's niece instead of his daughter, wasn't it?

            "The only thing they _can_ do is give her medication for the pain. She hides it when 'Kashi comes, but it's getting harder and harder. Sometimes she can't breathe right or her heartbeat shots up."

            I tried to block their whispers and focus on the little party occurring around the bed. Natsumi briefly took her eyes of Kakashi's drawing to look at me. Her dark grey eyes, similar to her son's, were gentle. It pained me to see such a good woman, such a good human being, falling prey to death because of an illness.

            As a shinobi, I came to the hospital frequently enough. Not only because of light or medium injuries, but also for annual check-ups. It shouldn't make me tremble so much to the white walls and the waiting rooms with their uncomfortable plastic chairs, but it did. Hospitals were the same no matter what world and I couldn't support their atmosphere. I knew that Natsumi-san wouldn't be leaving this room anytime soon and I would regret not visiting her, so I forced myself to come every time my team did.

            Her gray eyes told me that she appreciated the effort. She was aware that it couldn't be easy for me, a boy whose mother had died on a hospital bed, to come back to this building to talk to her about day-to-day things and to pretend that everything would be okay. Her gray eyes told me many, many things.

            ( _Look after my boys._

_Don't let them drown in sorrow._

_I'm sorry for leaving them._

_I'm sorry for leaving you._

_You'll all be fine._ )

            I was ready to say goodbye, but when would I ever be?

* * *

 

            I could feel Minato's assuring arm around my bony shoulders. Except for a handful of sniffing civilian woman, the small funeral was overall silent. Ninja were solemn and chose not to cry during it out of respect. If the family wasn't crying, why should the rest of us start to make a scene? They were being stronger than us close friends.

            Sakumo-sensei spoke a few words about his wife, but they flew over my head. I was sure they were lovely, because anything related to Natsumi-san could only be lovely. He had chosen to leave her coffin closed, not an uncommon habit in this world, and her last image would only be in our memories.

            I could picture her willowy form bending at the waist to offer me a plate of cookies, caramel waves of hair tumbling forward her shoulders and grey eyes twinkling in happiness. That was the last image I had of Natsumi-san in my mind as she was buried and it was also the one that I carried for the rest of my life. I could remember her many moments in the hospital and, though she seemed pretty fine most of the visits, these moments never reflected her trued self.

            Kakashi was clinging to the hem of my pants while his father spoke. He had already reached the one meter height and it sounded amazing to me that the only thing separating the tops of ours heads were thirty-five centimeters. I was tiny for my age - as annoying as it was to admit - and he would be a tall man in the future.

            I tried to swallow the sudden barrage of tears that threatened to come. Minato's comforting arm around my shoulders tightened, as if he knew that my crybaby tendencies were coming up. I bit my lower lip, forcing myself not cry here. Not because of the rest of group, but because _Kakashi was clinging to me_. He was silent, but not in tears. I knew from experience that those would come sooner or later.

            "May Hatake Natsumi rest in peace," my teacher finished with a hard edge to his tone.

            We repeated the line with different degrees of sadness. The gravediggers lowered the coffin and that was it. From now on, we were expected to overcome the loss as if it was as straightforward as it sounded. Our team would be given a couple of weeks at most without a mission to let Sakumo-sensei adjust to the lack of wife and managing of his household, but soon enough - _too soon_ , in fact - we would be called back to active duty.

            Kakashi's enrollment in the Academy was approved by the Hokage a couple of days later, despite his very, very young age. He sounded both excited and scared at the idea of going to _ninja school_. His prodigy tendencies would show early, as I was aware of his probable graduation by this time next year, so I was aware of how successful he'd be in his classes. In the end, however, he was only a year over toddlerhood, so I did my best to calm him.

            During these two weeks he clinged to me like a baby monkey. I wondered if he really saw me as a female figure as indicated by his name for me, _Onee-chan_. His father was in no state to take of a four-year-old after his wife's death, so I didn't mind spending my entire day in their house looking after Kakashi. I would do my best to make him keep his childish urges.

            All in all, I was afraid of what the future could hold. Nobody said it was going to be, but I kind of wished it was. Natsumi-san's death would led to a profound change in my teacher. Perhaps the presence of his team would keep him in the right track, but the major problem would only come when his son was six to seven years old. Would I be able to prevent the failure of the mission which led to his ultimate death? If it wasn't a failure, he wouldn't be ostracized for possibly causing the next war.

            Then again, if it was this simple, I would be able to plan for the Kyūbi's attack quite quickly. I didn't know the mission's detail or location or target, only that one of sensei's teammate was kidnapped and he chose to save him instead of continuing his obligation.

            I paused at my thinking, taking advantage of Kakashi's time in the bath to ponder over my confusing plans. Would we even be his team during this mission? It would happen in what, two, three years from now? Of course the First Response Team wasn't that easily disbanded as we _had_ been trained specially for this - among other things - but what guaranteed our participation on this mission? The war would be close enough to blow up because of _one_ mission, so who knew what the Hokage would change then?

            I rubbed my hands against my temples, feeling a headache starting. And to think that I only wanted to change Minato's fate in the beginning.

            A sobbing sound drew my attention. I hesitated for a moment, trying to hear if sensei would investigate the noise - it was obviously his son - but there was no sign of it. I sighed. My teacher was incredible in many aspects, but dealing with crying children wasn't one of them.

            I opened the bathroom door to find Kakashi crying on the ground with a giant, fluffy towel around his body.

            "Oh, 'Kashi," I made, using his nickname. I crouched down in front of the child, putting my arms around his form and drawing his face to my neck.

            "Nee-chan," he sobbed once again with tears and snot all over his face. I cleaned the cheeks and nose with the towel with practiced easy. I wouldn't be able comfort people in my first life, but my friends and Minato and Mom and Daddy had made me a better person.

            I was selfish. A liar. A weak little thing. Traumatized by loneliness. A crybaby. Bitter over many circumstances. In the end, however, I had learnt how to receive and give hugs - how to expect the best in people, because, at times, they could surprise you in the most unexpected way.

            So I stayed sitting in wet floor tile with a lapful of a crying child while trying to rock him to sleep. I could be many horrible things, but, right then, I was what a four-year-old saddened by his mother's death needed.

            If only I could make his grief easier to cart around like I had learnt to do.


	19. The Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone ought to tell Kumi they are shinobi, not samurai.

            "Again."

            "Tiger, ram, monkey, boar, tiger."

            "You forgot horse before the last tiger."

            I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

            I had asked Mikoto to teach me how to manipulate fire release. Like every good Uchiha, she was a fire maniac who got high on katon techniques. My dual affinity of lightning and wind, not to mention my chakra control, made it ridiculously easy  to learn raiton and fūton jutsus - and I did love them, but my eternal love was all things to do with chakra. I knew from the anime, mostly from Kakashi's crazy repertoire, that it wasn't impossible to learn techniques with affinities that weren't yours. It was just _slightly_ more difficult.

            I had read countless books on other chakra affinities. My read-and-learn ability was useful, but there were many nuances that couldn't be explained in a simple book. Such as how my chakra should feel as I transformed it from pure energy into fire. Some said it was _warmth_ , others, _fury_. I didn't feel anything really. Maybe it was because I was too aware of it? No. It couldn't be, because I knew when my chakra became wind or lightning.

            Another problem was the set of seals. I had great memorization skills, of course, but my fingers were still stiff in their unusual positions. Tiger, for example, was a must in fire techniques, but not that common in my daily repertoire. I had become good enough with my jutsus to need only one or two seals. My beloved Lightning Blades didn't even require hand-positions anymore - I only had to point my index and middle finger at my enemy and _ta-da._

            "Don't sulk, Kumi-chan," Mikoto told me, smiling at my downturned lips. "You're the best of us at Ninjutsu. The only reason why it looks difficult right now is because you're not used to it."

            Chitarō, who had been silently taking care of his katana a few meters from us, spoke up, "You're so troublesome sometimes, Kumi. As if the possibility of you _not getting it_ ever existed."

            I smiled at his vote of confidence.

            "Nee-chan, nee-chan, look!" Kakashi's childish voice called me.

            I glanced at where he was. Sensei was busy training some rookie ANBU team, as he usually did when we had no missions, so I had offered to take care of Kakashi as it wasn't a school day. My childhood friends decided to reunite in a training ground to chill out or study and I carted the silver-haired child with me.

            Before I could walk closer, the little brat came running towards me like the devil was on his heels. Once again, I promised myself to do my best to keep this energetic spirit within him. I don't know if I could bear looking at his dark grey eyes and seeing coldness.

            I crouched down, though in this position Kakashi was basically as tall as me. He was tall for an almost five-year-old and I was short for a thirteen-year-old. Ren thought it was funny. I most certainly did not. In my last lifetime, I recalled with a grimace, I'd been skin and bones, never able to grow a muscle, but never this small. Almost like a branch that didn't grow quite right and stayed as a twig.

            "Kihito-san taught me how to do Henge!" He told me, beaming with all his teeth and effectively taking me out of my bad memories.

            "Did he now?" I said, only half surprised. Kakashi supposedly graduated at five, which meant that the three basic techniques taught at the Academy shouldn't be too hard for him.

            "Look!" He said, twisting his hand in the dog, boar, ram seals and transforming into me with easy impeccability.

            I stood up, analyzing the perfect copy of myself. If there was one thing Kakashi hated, it was not to be taken seriously when he was learning how to be a shinobi. I could understand that - most ANBU operatives didn't take me, or even my teammates, for real in our first year as the First Response Team.

            "Isn't he great?" Kihito asked rhetorically, coming closer to us with his hands in his pockets. His bō-staff was secured at his back, since Tsume had a habit of picking it up and swinging it around if left unguarded.

            "Yeah, the details are amazing," _for his age_ , I almost completed, but stopped just in time. The transformation was amazing. Period.

            Kakashi had mimicked the way my hair, long enough to stop at hip length now, twisted in a high ponytail with a few golden strands falling around at my face, too short to be held back, and the way my eyes changed colors according to the light. Just the fact that he noticed these details at his age spoke of what a great ninja he'd be.

            "You did a great job, 'Kashi _,_ " I told him, ruffling his hair - well, my hair. He beamed, and the expression looked unfamiliar for me because I wasn't used to seeing myself smile. With a puff of smoke, he was back to himself.

            "Thank you, nee-chan," he said, holding my hand sweetly.

_Oh, jeez, lovely Kakashi couldn't disappear._

All of sudden, Tsume was gathering Kakashi in her arms and throwing him over her shoulder. She was cackling devilishly, but I wasn't worried. It was her way of life.

            "Now it's the Great Tsume's turn. Come, puppy, I'll teach you better, more important things than Boring Kihito could ever teach."

            Her canine partner barked in what I knew was agreement.

            "Hey," Boring Kihito complained, following the odd duo. I rolled my eyes at their antics.

            I inhaled deeply before turning back to Mikoto, who had stood watching the entire scene fold before her.

            "Ready to try it for real this time?" She questioned, looking excited. I could imagine why. The Great Fireball Technique had been invented by an Uchiha and mostly kept within the clan. An outsider being able to use it meant that someone had taught him/her.

            Frankly speaking, Mikoto was becoming a little rebel under Kihito and Tsume's tutelage. I honestly thought that the only reason she still tolerated her father's rules for now was because of Utatane-sensei's strict teaching methods. Even though the entirety of team Four had become Chūnin by now, the woman still was a demon team leader.

            "Yes."

            "I'll show it to you once more," my best girl friend said and I nodded in agreement. I had expanded my sensory ability enough to feel when my enemies' chakra was at their last strands and it was even easier to do it with familiar people. I knew that Mikoto could only do the jutsu twice more.

            She ran through the hand positions with the ease of a fire user, cupping her mouth and breathing a giant fireball with a simple cry of "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!". The path before us was swallowed by the monstrous fire and even the Snarky-and-Crude-Duo had stopped fighting over who taught Kakashi to watch.

            "This never gets old," Ren laughed beside Chita. He had been relatively silent today, choosing to read - of all things, I know - scrolls of his family's techniques.

            "Your turn," Mikoto said, looking at me with challenging onyx eyes. Sometimes, it was easy to forget which clan she belonged to due to her kindness. And, then, there were times like these - when she glanced at me with a smirk twisting her lips and a tilt of her head that just screamed at me _Can you do better than that, huh?_

            I closed my eyes for a moment, concentrating. In a way, it was frustrating. I was used to throwing jutsu around with the easiness shinobi threw their shuriken and kunai. I was able to connect with my internal energy with no major problems, expanding my familiarity with it each day. Even my sensor abilities had become essential to most missions we took.

            On the other hand, the challenge was exciting. The necessity of training and applying myself to something was always welcome. Maybe I had spent too much time in this world, maybe this had been my personality all along - but of one thing I was certain of: life was ten times more worthwhile when you had to fight tooth and nail for it.

            My seals were smooth simply because I had practiced the positions a thousand times during the Academy. The way I flew over - _tiger, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger -_ was agonizingly slower compared to Mikoto, though.

            As I forced my chakra to go up my throat and out of my mouth, I concentrated on the sensation of it. Wind and lightning were different from the descriptions of earth, water and fire. The former was made to be sharp and the later, quick. Their transformation was a flurry of energy shooting out of my body before I could even think about it. It was precise, of course, but my chakra went back to simply being energy in a jiff.

            Fire wasn't like that. It felt as if could go on forever. It was _crawling_ its way up, burning every fiber of my very being with its warmth. The descriptions in the books were both right and wrong. It did feel like warmth and fury, but it also felt like power and earnestness  and passion and destruction. In my mind, it felt like _always_ , though it was over in seconds.

            "Katon: Gokākyū no Jutsu (Great Fireball)!"

            A ball of fire four times bigger than myself came out of a thin strip from my mouth, raging over the already scorched grass with overwhelming intensity. As it died down, I gulped a ridiculous amount of air. Ok, this explained why Uchihas made their piromaniac-ish shows quick - you couldn't breathe while expelling fire chakra.

            I was feeling slightly empty, which was weird. Fire wasn't even my affinity, why would it matter if it was here or not? Not to mention that I loved the possibilities wind and lightning offered me - they were five times more versatile.

            I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked at Mikoto's gentle smile.

            "Feels strange the first time, doesn't it?" She asked, sounding proud of my accomplishment. "Fire is livelier than the other affinities, that's why it feels like a mix of sensations. It's a bit overwhelming at first."

            I nodded in agreement. Actually, it made sense. The adults were always mentioning the Will of Fire and whatnot. I thought it had to do with the Fire Country's, especially Konoha's, desire to succeed and protect. As most of our ninja force had a fire affinity, it was a no brainer why we were an energetic, sometimes over-the-top, bunch.

            "Thank you for taking you time to teach me. Your tips were," I was saying, but Mikoto put her hand over my mouth. I absently noticed that it was more calloused than when we first met all these years ago.

            "My tips were fine. It's your control of chakra and your intelligence that made you succeed. Frankly, you're gonna be one hell of a Ninjutsu specialist in the future."

            "Hear, hear!" Ren shouted, clapping excitedly. I blushed lightly at his fervor.

            Chitarō rolled our eyes at us, "He's already a Ninjutsu specialist. Kumi is the best Chūnin in this village in regards to chakra."

            I waved my hands dismissively at them, "Enough, guys." And covered my face when they laughed.

            I loved my friends, but, boy, could they make me blush.

* * *

 

            _Boy, could they make me blush_ , I thought to myself, later this week.

            Ren was having fun at my expense, but this was nothing new. I could see him on the other side of the long table, whispering something at his brother, and both of them laughing like gossiping girls. I sighed at the view, wondering if Inoichi's sole purpose in life was to make fun of his teammates too.

            "Having fun?" Chitarō asked, sitting right beside me. His eyes were amused over his cup.

            I rolled my eyes at him, a small smile escaping its way through my lips.

            "Does it matter? Ren is having a blast over there. Enough for the both of us, I suppose."

            Chita laughed, smirking. Nara and their smirks.

            A horrible laugh drew my attention. _Kushina_ , I inwardly winced. I had become used to her presence and my brother even made some effort not to take her home when I was there, but I couldn't completely ignore her existence. Especially with this breathy-shrilly laugh of hers close.

            We were celebrating my brother's promotion to Jōnin. _We_ as in _all of our closest friends_ , so, of course, Kushina's presence was expected. Welcomed, even, by my brother. She was always chatty and flamboyant and too-much when I was there to see it. Her smiles towards me seemed sincere, but we were ninja and sincerity wasn't that hard to fake. She'd have to be an idiot not to notice my dislike for her until now. Hadn't the anime portrayed her as one, though?

            "Don't mind her," Chitarō murmured in ear since everyone around us was a shinobi with acute hearing.

            I nodded, not replying. Minato was busying himself with Kushina, Shikaku and Shibi. Poor Chōza sat between the tense Hyūga twins trying to talk and create an amiable atmosphere. The Yamanaka brothers were _still_ gossiping and, no surprise there, the Snarky-and-Crude Duo were bickering between themselves. Umino Tetsuo and Shinji Aiko, who had become our friends after their placement in my brother and friends' teams for the Chūnin Exams, were absent; they'd gotten married - it was easy to forget them being a few years our senior due to their easygoing nature - and Aiko was in her last months of pregnancy. I knew that this baby was most probably Umino Iruka, which made the timeline even more real. Decided to ignore this line of thinking, I kept my eyes around the long table, observing everyone's activities. At the very end sat Mikoto and Fugaku, the latter speaking lowly about some matter and the former looking down.

            I frowned, sending chakra to my ears to better enhance my senses - a trick that Sakumo-sensei had taught us soon into his teaching days. I couldn't hear their whispered words, however, over everyone's loud chatter. This trick _did_ work better in silent forests, after all.

            "Kumi-chan!" Ren called and I turned my head to look at him. His sudden wink made me roll my eyes and duck my head to hide my blush. His brother laughed with him at my reaction. Idiots, both of them.

            "They sure know how to play with your dislike for attention, huh?" Chitarō mused beside me.

            I shrugged, trying to  play it off. Frankly, Ren's teasing would have more worrying, especially with Shikaku so close to hearing range, if Mikoto didn't look like she was about to cry at the end of the table. This was meant to be a celebration as Minato was the first of us to become a Jōnin.

            I bit the inside of my cheek. My best girl friend was sweet as she was fierce. She could glare you to the ground if you truly pissed her off, but, most of the time, Mikoto was fine with just observing in the sidelines. She preferred acting behind the scenes instead of being confrontational. In a way, her personality matched well with mine.

            Except it didn't match well with Fugaku's. He was my brother's Genin teammate. They got along well and I would feel guilty should they stop speaking because of my meddling, but I'd never pick their friendship over Mikoto's happiness. She was to marry him, there was no doubt about it, but should she become the silently suffering wife so early on?

            I gulped. I could picture Sasuke's and Itachi's expression inside my head, their drawing lines and stories. I could comprehend the Uchiha's firstborn's feelings, his loneliness and sense of duty. And this was only without seeing him as a real, touchable person. How would it be when he was born and not only an anime character? Would I be able to add another block of guilty over me for not acting earlier?

            Guilt was an ugly emotion. Kakashi's tears after his mother's death had started a chain of heartbreak that was on its path to shreds.

            I got up.

            "Kumi?" I heard Chita asked, bewildered.

            I should stop. I shouldn't meddle. I was entitled to saving my brother's life - _maybe -_ but not anything else. I had nothing to do with Kakashi's mother. With sensei's suicide. With Kakashi's stern nature. With the Uchiha clan's future. With the Third War. With the Fourth War. With Mikoto's _wedding_ , for goodness' sake.

            But I _had_. Because a person wasn't meant to be sitting on the sidelines while their loved ones got hurt. I couldn't relate to Naruto's brightness and his stubbornness, but I could understand his need to be helpful and his desire not to let anyone die. Because I'd died once and I knew how it felt and death wasn't what scared me and loneliness _was._ I was afraid of _buts_ , because _buts_ were preceded by _I tried_ and followed by _I failed_.

            I approached the end of the table with my hands shaking, but determined to get there. By then, everybody had stopped chatting to look at me. I was sure I looked as foolish as one can get.

            "Fugaku-san."

            It wasn't a question.

            "Hmm?"

            The Uchiha-like answer made me steel myself.

            "Please, spar with me."

            _Historical movies made you crazy_ , my mind chided me. _You aren't a knight fighting for a maiden's honor. You're barely a fighter._

            Fugaku's eyebrows rose in surprise. I could heard Minato's confused voice in the background, but only faintly over the roaring in my ears. My blood was pumping so fast I might as well faint.

            "And why, pray tell, would I fight a pint-sized shinobi like you?"

            His jab at my height had no effect. I was mostly calm.

            "Because Mikoto may be your fiancée and I may not have anything to do with this, but I _do_ have something to do with her happiness and peace of mind. And if you're disturbing this, I can't keep quiet about it. That's why," I said, trying not to sound too stupid by my request and not choke at the same time when his eyes started burning in rage," I want you to fight against me. _And,_ should you lose, you won't ever again make Mikoto cry."

            It was an unrealistic promise. He couldn't promise not to make her cry, of course. She'd shed tears eventually because of whatever reason. And this fact made me sound like a toddler walking towards his doom.

            Fugaku snorted.

            "Sure. Let's take this outside and make you wish you'd never opened your mouth."

            He got and started walking to the door. Mikoto was looking at me horrified.

            "Kumi-chan, you didn't have to do this," she said, about to continue ranting before I cut her off.

            "I had. You were about to sob all by yourself because this idiot thought he could walk all over you. Well, he can't. And he won't. Not anymore."

            I turned around and followed Fugaku. Behind me I could hear my friends and my brother getting up and I'm sure one of them apologized to the owner of the restaurant for the trouble.

            I had to fight Fugaku before this burning flame inside of me became a sizzle and I was too down the road of guilt.

            Too many historical movies, indeed.

* * *

 

            Shikaku was sure he was the only one smirking wickedly.

            Minato was predictably fretting. The rest was a mix of slightly tense and worried. Even Tsume, the crazy Inuzuka heiress, was quiet. He couldn't fathom why they were so anxious. Neither of the Chūnin were about to die - it was only a spar. Even though its motive didn't sound very ninja-like and more samurai-oriented. Over a woman's happiness? Frankly, Shikaku would just dump the woman and move on.

            He supposed, though, that since Fugaku and Mikoto were betrothed, they couldn't simply stop seeing each other. Well, Shikaku would never interfere like Minato's little brother had done, but he could enjoy the consequences. Fierce Namikaze Kumi was a new side to his puzzle.

            The training ground was empty except for them. The Nara heir wasn't even sure of which one it was, so distracted he was with the possibility of seeing a fight of pint-sized Kumi against brute Fugaku.

            (Seriously, though, didn't the kid eat? He was thirteen and about a hundred-forty centimeters tall. There had to be something wrong with that.)

            "You should stop behaving foolishly. We are shinobi, not samurai," Fugaku commented, almost expressing Shikaku's thoughts word for word.

            Kumi's face didn't betray anything. It made Shikaku smirk in anticipation. He had seen many emotions splattered against this face. Embarrassment, happiness, bewilderment. This cold anger was new.

            "Very well," the Uchiha male acquiesced.

            Fugaku ran forward, his stance ready to change in case his direct attack got thwarted. Kumi didn't move until the last moment, dodging the punch with a turn of his head and ducking under the other's arm. He tapped a muscle in the Uchiha's leg and his knee gave out immediately. Shikaku was sure his puzzled had used a lightning current.

            Kumi jumped away, moving his hands in a preparation for a jutsu. The fact that only two seals were necessary meant that it was one of his most used ones.

            "Fūton: Daitoppa (Great Breakthrough)!"

            A giant wind blast threw Fugaku back, but he had already recovered, sliding away in a crouch to slow his movements. The Uchiha formed hand-seals, cupping his mouth in preparation.

            "Katon: Gokākyū no Jutsu (Great Fireball)!"

            "Katon: Gokākyū no Jutsu (Great Fireball)!"

            Two voices shouted at the same time and Shikaku turned surprised eyes at Kumi. He'd gotten better. He remembered the little kid who didn't know how to plan at the spot, whispering quietly over being unable to decide on a strategy within seconds of action.

            "Huh, since when he knows how to control fire affinity?" Minato questioned, confused.

            "He's been reading about it for awhile," Chitarō explained and Shikaku realized that his brother and Ren were the only ones in the training ground calm despite the situation. "But Mikoto taught him his first fire technique this week."

            "Talk about being a prodigy with Ninjutsu," Chōza whistled appreciatively.

            "We reckon he's going to learn a technique, at least, for every affinity," Ren piped in.

            Inoichi rolled his eyes, "Maybe he didn't have any problem with fire because it's his third affinity or something, but this doesn't mean that he'll get water and earth. Some Jōnin have up to three affinities and never manage to control a fourth one."

            "Nah," Kihito dismissed the Yamanaka heir comment with a wave of his hand. "Nobody has all the affinities, _of course_ , but this doesn't mean that you can control all five of them. It only means that you'll have more difficulty with the other. Kumi is a genius in all matter chakra, he'll manage. Maybe not in a year or two, like you would with your natural affinity, but he will."

            It was the most Shikaku had ever heard the Sarutobi heir say in one go and he was impressed. Kumi's friends had so much faith in his abilities, it was amazing. They would never argue over _ifs_ , only _when._

            Before he turned back to watch the fight, Shikaku saw a look cross over Minato's face. He couldn't place it - and, man, did it bother him not being able to read someone's thoughts in their expressions - so he stored in his mind for later analyzing.

            Fugaku and Kumi were engaged in a Taijutsu spar and it was clear the latter was losing. Shikaku wasn't surprised. The younger Namikaze fought mainly with his lower-body strength and Fugaku wasn't giving him the chance to enter his stances, occupying the blond with dodging his punches. The Uchiha was all about brute strength and fire techniques while his smaller opponent was all about grace and control.

            "He's not giving it his all," Shikaku commented, surprised. He'd have thought that, since this fight was about Mikoto's future happiness or whatever, the blond would fight with everything he had. 

            Chitarō let out a laugh at his comment, looking all-knowing and annoying.

            "Does it bother not knowing something about your puzzle, Aniki?" The little shit whispered too low for anyone else to hear, except maybe the Inuzuka heiress given by her snort. "Anyway. As the First Response Team, we can enter stupid fights or train our asses off, since we may be called in for a mission at any moment. Kumi knows this and is making do with what he can. Not to say that he'll lose, of course. He'll still win against Fugaku full-strength or not."

            His brother was right. Five minutes, a bunch of fire and wind techniques and a failed Genjutsu attempt later, Kumi moved in for the kill so to speak.

            Fugaku lost his balance when Kumi ducked his fist and swept his leg in a half-circle. Before the Uchiha could roll to his side, the blond had extended his arm, his index and middle finger in its signature position, and tapped the taller opponent in the neck.

            "Raiton: Raihan no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)."

            The effect was instantaneous. Fugaku slumped down, unconscious. Kumi got up from his crouch, looking winded. Shikaku had just remembered the blonde's low stamina when his body gave out. Before it could hit the ground, though, Ren grabbed his teammate around the waist.

            As the friends moved around him toward the Uchiha and the smallest Namikaze, Shikaku stayed rooted in his place, staring puzzled at Ren's expression. The dirty-blond had shot him a look as he gathered Kumi in his arms that Shikaku couldn't decipher. Its answer should have been in the smirk across Ren's face, but the Nara heir simply didn't manage to place it.

            For one reason or another, it bothered him senseless.

* * *

 

            We were dining when Minato spoke up.

            "Hey, Kumi...?" He hesitate, which made me frown. My brother wasn't one to trail of in uncertainty.

             "Yes, Onii-san?"

            While waiting for my brother to gather his bearings, I poked my failed attempt at cooking a _korokke_ with my chopsticks. It was a deep-fried dish that looked like a French croquette and Mom used to do it wonderfully, but my always ended up too dry. Minato ate it anyway, but my constant failure at cooking it was getting old.

            "I've always known about your talent for Ninjutsu," he started and I stayed silent, unaware of where he was taking this. "I mean, anyone with eyes can see you have a knack for it, but I didn't realize..."

            A pause.

            "I have a project of mine. I mean, I'm mainly a Taijutsu fighter with some wind techniques, but I've been reading some of your books about chakra manipulation. I wanted to tweak some fūton jutsu, but the complexity of manipulation drew me in altogether."

            "Nii-san, you're rambling," I laughed at his embarrassed grin. "What is it?"

            "I've been trying to create a jutsu based entirely on chakra manipulation for a year already, but I hit a barrier a month ago. And I think you may be able to help me."

            Minato continued explaining what he wanted and the intricacies of his technique, but his voice faded into the background. He was talking about the Rasengan _._ The freaking, honest-to-God _Rasengan_. And he wanted _my_ help.

            Oh, sweet Jesus.

            "Kumi-chan, are you listening to me?" Minato whined, poking my cheek with his chopsticks. Chopsticks dirty with sauce.

            "Onii-san!" I exclaimed, feeling the stickiness in my face.

            He laughed at me, "That's what you get for not listening to your great, almighty older brother."

            "There's nothing almighty about you, Onii-san," I replied, entering this cheery mood with easiness.

            He was strong now, of course. But his _almightiness_ would only come later.


	20. The Mastery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kumi gets a Master rank in Fuinjutsu, but it does not necessarily mean good things are on their way.

           "The trick to understand this part is visualization," Suzaku-sensei told me for what felt like the thousandth time.

            Frankly, it was way easier said than done. Most of the time, Fūinjutsu came to me as smoothly as controlling my chakra did. Both were my strongest points and I was quite proud of that.

            I'd been having difficult weeks for awhile, though. Not only had I started learning how to mold Earth chakra - an entire disgraceful story on its own - Suzaku-sensei had decided that I was ready to start the last stages of my training with him.

_Drawing seals on air._

            That's right - it sounded as it impossible as it did the first time he said it. I knew it was possible - my brother had done it in the anime and my teacher had done it right in front of me - but still sounded somewhat ludicrous.

            Fūinjutsu was logical and detailed. Technically speaking, anyone could learn the basics should they have the patience for it. The high-level seals, however, were different. Some people would never get them. You had to have an instinct for this art, for there could be situations where a brush and chakra-infused paint wouldn't be available. Learning how to work with others supplies was harder than remembering how many uses a symbol had.

            Being where I was with my studies, I could draw with practically anything on basically any surface. Infused paint, normal paint, mud, blood, water, even on dirt with my own finger. The surface affected how the seals worked as well, and you were supposed to know how to draw on more than paper - wood, metal, clothes. My teacher had drilled into me the necessity of knowing these things and I had soaked it up, because in war you didn't have the luxury of taking out your supplies and sitting down to write it.

            It made utmost sense for me to finally learn how to draw seals on air with pure chakra manipulation.

            It was as frustrating as it sounds.

            I was capable of many things. I had a giant repertoire of Lightning and Wind techniques and was able to expel Fire, not my natural affinity. I could bring chakra to basically any part of my body to enhance my muscles or senses, even unconsciously when running. I could hang upside down on a tree branch, for goodness' sake. But I sure as hell couldn't expel my chakra in a freaking seal format.

            I was visualizing the most simple of seals in my head - an explosive one - but there was no result. I could feel the energy thrumming under my skin, ready to burst out of me, vibrating as if Pop Rock candies were suddenly right over my blood veins.

            "Stop," Suzaku-sensei asked, putting his hand over my shoulder.

            I broke out of my concentration, noticing how my nails were biting into the palms of my hands.

            "You are too tense. Fūinjutsu is a delicate art, you'll never manage this part if you are trying too hard. Take a deep breath and start again."

            I nodded, swallowing the disappointment in myself. I loved sealing, but even it could make me feel horrible when I failed. I hated failing. Following Suzaku-sensei's advice, I inhaled slowly, clearing my mind of unwanted thoughts.

            First thing first, how should I go on about it? I had the distinct impression that Minato used hand-seals in the anime, though he mostly focused on barrier and time-space seals. My teacher had had none of that. His demonstration had been of a relatively advanced seal, but with no movements. It simply had appeared in front of him as if written from nothing, but molded with chakra.

            I decided to ask about it.

             "Sensei?"

            "Hmm?" He asked, looking up from his cup of tea. The man loved his teabags.

            "Is it possible to use hand-seals to draw on air instead of just molding chakra and visualizing?"

            He looked at me for a moment, analyzing my uncomfortable expression at his assessing eyes.

            "It is," Suzaku-sensei started and I knew better then to interrupt his explanation. "However, those who use hand-seals will have multiple disadvantages harder to overcome if you'd just learnt how to make do without them."

            I waited patiently for the explanation that was sure to come.

            "First of all, hand-seals are a shortcut. We don't do shortcuts in Fūinjutsu unless you want to end up dead one of these days. Secondly, it takes longer, as you have to adapt each seal you will possibly use to a sequence of hand-seals - some of them already exist, but what if you create a new one? Who will match it with sequence of a hand-seals?"

            As Suzaku-sensei kept going on, I thought that it made complete sense. If the anime followed my version of events, Minato was learning Fūinjutsu from Kushina, who only used Uzumaki seals. From what I have seen of their rare classes in my apartment, the redhead hadn't bothered learning other types of seals, because she was talented in the art like any other Uzumaki, but too impatient to dive too deeply into it. Consequently, Minato was only learning about Uzumaki seals, whose trademark was its defensive or time-space characteristics. Being so, most of these seals had been circulating for years and already had a sequence of hand-seals - which explained Minato's usage during the _Naruto series_.

            "And last but _most certainly_ not least: if you can't learn how to draw on air, you'll never be able to work with body-altering seals."

            I looked up at my teacher's knowing gaze, interested. I'd been discussing the possibility of creating a body-altering seal with him for a few weeks, which explained the necessity of working on air-drawing.

            "Why?"

            He set his cup of tea down.

            "As you know, drawing on bare flesh is risky. Your entire chakra system is under your skin and even though you can direct energy to the seal through one of its pathways, the chakra does not stop flowing. Even those with an incredible control will find themselves having a hard time activating the seal correctly. That's where air-drawing comes handy - you'll expel your chakra with pin-point precision and activate the seal. Once it's out of your body, the chakra can no longer interact with the pathways and turn the seal against you."

            I sighed, still somewhat confused.

            "But I have my Grasshopper seal written under the soles of shoes and I make them work just fine," I commented, even going as far as to glance at my shinobi-standard footwear.

            "Of course they do, silly student, they're not drawn on _you_."

            "Oh," I realized, embarrassed for my obvious mistake.

            Suzaku-sensei smirked, "However, if you manage to nail this exercise, you should be able to jump on air - a feat no shinobi has ever been able to achieve no matter how good is their control over the water-walking exercise, as the Grasshopper is a creation of yours.

            "Oh?"

            "Instead of jumping an incredible distance, you'd be able to maintain constant seals on air and walk just fine."

            "Eh, sensei, you _do_ know about my seal's working and you _do_ know air-drawing, so... Haven't you ever tried to jump on air?"

            He ruffled my air, completely destroying my ponytail.

            "I didn't want to tell you, maybe let you have the glory of being the first one to achieve this _unachievable_ feat, but if you must now - yes, I have."

* * *

 

            "Nee-san, does your tummy hurt?"

            I exhaled, losing my concentration. I looked down at Kakashi, who had thrown himself in front of me and was talking to me upside down. I sat over my shins to give him better space.

            "Why would you ask that?" I questioned, puzzled.

            His dark grey eyes were twinkling in childish amusement. I was happy to notice that even though his graduation was about to happen next spring, a month or so from now, he still retained this sweet personality of his.

            (When would it change?)

            "Because you were making this face," he said, mimicking my previous expression by tightening his lips and closing his eyelids as hard as he could.

            I laughed softly at his try.

            "No tummies aching here," I pointed to myself with utmost seriousness before sending a look his way. "Why, does yours hurt? Right here? Or how about here? And _here?"_

            "Nee-san, that tickles!" He squeaked, getting away from my poking fingers. "I'll play with Ren instead!"

            I watched him go to the other side of the training ground with a smile. A hand patted my head and I knew without looking - gosh, even without sensing his chakra - that its owner was Chitarō.

            "You're surprisingly good with kids."

            "Thanks," I smiled up at him, happy to be complimented on something.

            "Especially considering that most kids are taller than you despite you already being fourteen and frankly quite difficult to take seriously."

            I huffed, "Remind me why I keep talking to you again..."

            Chitarō let out a chuckle, sitting down next to me. His hair was sweaty and his breath was uneven from doing his sword katas a few times.

            "Well, Ren is even more annoying if you ignore him, if that's even possible. And I'm your way to my brother's heart, trust me."

            I blushed to the tips of my hair, hitting his arm.

            "You _so_ are not!"

            "Huh, not denying your goal, then?"

            "Shut _up_ ," I groaned, hiding my face in my hands as my best friend laughed beside me. "Sometimes, you're worse than Ren at this crush thingy."

            "I call it as I see it, man."

            I huffed, exasperated. He smiled at me.

            There was a peaceful, silent pause. We had been friends long enough to let unspoken moments not bother us. Kakashi was laughing at something Ren had said, escaping from my teammate's tickling fingers.

            "How is Minato's little project progressing?" Chitarō asked, sounding as if trying to fill the silence. I knew better. He was curious, ready to analyze my answer like any good Nara worth their reputation would.

            "Fine, I guess. I mean, he doesn't want my help in the practical department, so..." I trailed off, unsure how to put it.

            I had been excited when Minato asked for my help. I mean, he was creating _the_ Rasengan and needed _my_ help - as long as he did all the chakra work. I couldn't blame the guy for wanting to be the first one to use his own technique, so I begrudgingly gave pointers about the energy work and the control needed to finish it. I tried not to sound too insightful - _as if I already knew what he needed to do to complete the Rasengan and was even aware of the, imagine that, future name of his incomplete technique._

            "Uh, he's doing ok, I guess," I finished somewhat lamely.

            Chita quirked an eyebrow up at my tone, "If you say so."

            I felt the chakra surging in my sensory field even before the turtle-masked ANBU in front of us, so his sudden appearance didn't surprise me. Chitarō, however, just barely managed not to flinch away.

            "Namikaze-san, Nara-san," he greeted with a steely voice. He was new to our ranks, because the last turtle-masked ANBU had been more slender and younger. This one sounded like he could be a Jōnin outside our own ranks. "Hokage-same requests you and Yamanaka-san in his office as soon as possible."

            "We will head there," Chitarō said, getting up and swiftly pulling his sword sheath on his back.

            "Thank you," I added before the ANBU member could flicker away. He acknowledged me with a nod and disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

            "Always so polite," Chitarō sighed, as if my politeness ever really bothered him.

            "Shut _up_ ," I told him, just for the sake of it. He snorted. "C'mon, I'll leave Kakashi with my brother."

            Chitarō paused, thoughtful, "Isn't he with Kushina-san right now, though?"

            "Yeah, something about a _not-date_ ," I replied, because sometimes I was a little shit and it was my job as his younger brother to complicate his love life.

            My best friend positively chortled.

* * *

 

            When we body-flickered into the Hokage's office, ANBU gear and all, Sakumo-sensei had already been there. His face was indecipherable, looking grave and sad at the same time, but he managed to give us a small smile. He was usually so busy these days training new ANBU teams that seeing him outside mission hours or when I went to his house to bring Kakashi back was an unusual sight.

            "Hokage-sama," we murmured, respectfully bowing.

            "You can take off your masks," is the first thing he said and an apprehensive feeling settled in the bottom of my stomach. I turned my Deer mask to the side of my head.

            The Hokage was still relatively young compared to the _Naruto series_ , but he was no fresh shinobi. There were age lines in his faces, wrinkles of tiredness and stress. He seemed deceptively old and frail sitting on his chair with his official red robes and his long fingers crossed over themselves on the table.

            "ANBU Squad Number One," he said and I straightened my back. "I will be giving you your last mission."

            My legs felt like jelly.

            _What?_ , I wanted to ask, but the words got stuck in my throat, my training in ANBU being the only thing keeping me from shouting in dismay.

            "Sir?" Ren hesitantly questioned, unable to help himself. Chitarō usually chastised our friend for being impatient and not following the protocol, but this time he kept silent, seemingly curious himself.

            The Hokage sighed.

            "Your team captain has been training several ANBU squad in the last few months, yes?" He inquired, mostly as a reminder. "We had talked months ago about creating new First Response Teams, not because your work ethic was subpar, but out of necessity. Skirmishes in the borders are becoming more and more frequent, not to mention the growing number of foreign shinobi trying to enter our land without permission or mission-related reasons. It came to our attention that one First Response Team would quickly be insufficient, so I gave Sakumo the order to prepare at least six other squads."

            Everything our leader had said until then had made the utmost sense. Although the rest of my teammates had no idea of this fact and sensei and the Hokage probably only had suspicions about it, a war was brewing and would soon emerge. I had noticed our increased workload, but hadn't made much of it.

            Why, though? Why would our team be disbanded?

            "At first, there was no reason to dismantle your team. It is a well-oiled machine and has been ever since I assigned you together despite your young ages. However, last week, Nara Suzaku requested a meeting with me and brought one fact to my attention."

            I could feel Chitarō and Ren's inquiring gaze, as if I knew what Hokage-sama was talking about. I had no idea. Suzaku-sensei hadn't mentioned anything to me when I met him two days ago for our usual training session. Had I done something wrong? Unforgivable?

            Was it my fault?

            "Your teammate Namikaze Kumi has achieved Master ranking in Fūinjutsu," and the news took me by surprised and I should be overjoyed, but the only thing I could think about were the words _I will be giving you your last mission_ and why was this happening again? "Which means that he can no longer be in a high-risk team outside warring times."

            I took a deep breath. I was more rational than this. I was stronger than my madly beating heart flying out of my cage. Anxiety curled around itself in my throat and I managed to choke my words out.

            "We're being disbanded because of me?"

            _Ah,_ I thought, dazed, _I hadn't meant to say that._

            Chita shook my arm, "Hey, don't you dare think that."

            "You've achieved one of your dreams, Kumi-chan, there's nothing wrong with that," Ren added, looking equally upset. He linked his hand with mine in an assuring gesture.

            Sakumo-sensei looked so relieved at their reaction - good, not resentful - that I cracked a smile. My fears and hesitations were still a mile long, but I could count on these people to keep me grounded and not to work myself to a frenzy.

            Much more calmer now, I frowned. Suzaku-sensei had declared me a Master? Air sealing was coming along nicely, in a way, but not _that well_. Kakashi had been right earlier - I looked like I had stomachache every time I dried to draw on air a more complicated seal.

            Hokage-sama cleared his throat, ending our little moment and making us straighten our backs, paying utmost attention. He gave a scroll to Sakumo-sensei, which no doubt contained details of our mission.

            "Three days, a team of Iwa shinobi caused a scene in our border with the Grass Country. We suspect that Kusagakure may be slowly being overtaken by the Earth Country and can no longer be trusted, a small mistake we didn't take in account until then."

            The Hokage looked at us sharply.

            "Your mission is to enter into Earth territory and bring Uchiha Kizoku from their hands. The rest of his team, including his Jōnin-sensei, were killed and burned as not to leave a trace behind. Fortunately, one of our current border teams found the corpses before they could disappear and concluded what had happened Uchiha Kizoku. The Uchiha's Clan Head has been contacted and he requested a specialized team to acquire his heir back."

            I dropped my eyes to the floor. Of course Kizouku's death would be a blow to the clan, being the heir and all, but it would never compare with his imprisonment if Iwa decided to make use of his Sharingan. I knew from Mikoto that he managed to develop it a few months-

            _Mikoto_.

            Did she know? Was she aware that her brother could be dead right now? No, not dead. The Tsuchikage would be stupid to let this chance go. He has an Uchiha in his clutches, he would want the prized eyes.

            "No one else but the Uchiha Clan Head and us knows about the incident. The team who sent us the messaged has been ordered to keep things low. They will receive you in our upper camp and direct you in the right direction. Others details are written in the scroll. This is a mission you cannot fail. You have two hours to prepare. Dismissed."

            We instinctively body flickered out of the office without even have to look at each other.

* * *

 

            I stared uneasily at my locker. Ren was making last minute checks by my side and Chitarō sat on the bench with his eyes closed, his expression blank. Sakumo-sensei had gone to send a message to our families about our mission. Sometimes there was no time for goodbyes and a piece of paper would have to do. It sounded harsh, but First Response Teams weren't made to be cotton candies.

            A bad feeling was making me queasy. I hated it. I hated going on missions with this kind of anxiety curling around me, but there was nothing I could do to control it. Our trained instincts made us over think at times and the only way to relax was to breathe through it.

            A part of me wanted to reassure Mikoto that her brother would be fine, that we would bring him back. She loved him even when he was snarky and treated her like garbage. I could understand it in a way - I had never truly hated Sister.

            I knew that I couldn't say anything, though. What could I even say? She didn't know about. Better for her. Nothing to worry about for the next few days. Hokage's last words - _this is a mission you cannot fail_ \- didn't mean that we had to bring Uchiha Kizoku back alive. Only that we had bring him - and his eyes - back. Even his father, the Clan Head, was surely aware of this fact.

            It was harsh. Then again, when wasn't this world harsh and crippling?  

            "Ready?" Sensei asked, entering the locker room once again.

            We nodded, donning our masks.

            I pushed every other thought that didn't involve this mission out of my mind. It was our last mission together, the person we were rescuing was Mikoto's little brother, it was one of these dreadful assignments we didn't have time to say goodbye, my new title as Fūinjutsu Master - nothing of that sort mattered.

            It would later on, when we came back, but not right then.

            It felt easier to breathe this way.


End file.
